Samantha Tamaguchi & the Rise of the Titans (SYOC Closed)
by angelfirecho
Summary: Samantha Tamaguchi is a very different daughter of Ares and is soon chosen to embark on a quest to prevent those who were thought to be vanquished from starting the Third Titan War. Join Samantha, Marcus and their friends and companions in their fight to prevent history from repeating itself and from becoming the next set of demigods to stand between the Titans and Olympus.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own characters, the rest of the characters are owned by their respective owners and everything else belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **Samantha  
**

Samantha was not amused. In hindsight her day had gone terribly but compared to what she would be facing in the future, she would find herself wishing she could go back to these types of days. Her life was just so much simpler on a normal day, or whatever qualifies as a normal for a demigod.

It had started with waking up in the Ares cabin. Yes, she was the daughter of the violent and bloodthirsty god of war, but despite being a child of Ares she looked nothing like her siblings and held different values. Her slim build and graceful movements were nothing like her bulky, heavy siblings and this was usually the source of an argument. Which is exactly what happened a few minutes after she pulled on an orange Camp Half-blood tank top, ripped shorts and combat boots. She rolled her eyes as he approached. Brendan was one of the more aggressive and largest of her siblings, which frustrated her because she could never power her way past them. "Hey skinny ass," he sneered. "Ever thought about building up so it doesn't look like our father made a mistake claiming you as one of us?"

Samantha just rolled her eyes and stood to face him. Brendan made daily attacks about her differences since he got here just over a week ago and it was beginning to wear on her patience. Her cabin mates never got involved either; in Ares you fought your own battles. The only time the entire cabin got involved is if the insults affected something everyone was involved with, but in this cabin you had to earn your way to the top the hard way by showing you could beat everyone in a fight.

Brendan kept coming at her. Built like a football offensive linesman and taller than her by about a foot, he was rather intimidating. But his attitude was several feet taller than he was, something Samantha had been shaving down since he had been claimed. Several scars along his body paid tribute to her efforts but they didn't seem to get through his thick skull. She idly wondered if bringing her blade down on top of his head more often would get the message through but instead she folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure it was me who was the mistake? How about you, with your pathetic sword fighting? An Aphrodite kid could take you on and win while barely breaking into sweat Brendan."

Brendan turned an impressive shade of red and closed the distance quicker to get in her face. "Why you little b-"

He was cut off by the point of Samantha's blade, _Nous_ (mind) being pressed against his throat and her glare stabbing daggers into his face. "Just shove off, I don't have the patience or time to deal with your pathetic ass right now, so get out of my face before I give you some more scars, and maybe I'll put them in some more painful areas this time because the ones before didn't seem to send a message."

Brendan gulped, staring down the length of her sword and backed away. Rolling her eyes, Samantha rolled the hilt of her sword around her wrist and it transformed back into a ring on her middle finger before turning towards the door. Her cabinmates parted, allowing her to have a clear path to the common area outside before she headed for the dining pavilion for breakfast.

Then her day had progressed into dealing with a number of pranks from the Hermes cabin in the training arena, leaving her drenched in cold water and in a very sour mood. Now as she crouched on her perch in a tree beside the creek boundary of the capture the flag game, she watched as several holes opened up in her team's defense as they were drawn away by a superb bait and attack plan from the Athena cabin. She reluctantly gave them credit for the plan, as a strategist herself she admitted it was a spectacular plan but now was when much of her team's attack fell on her shoulders. She heard a rustle below her and knew the small flank squad from the blue team was moving across the boundary. She quickly signalled Elizabeth from the Apollo cabin before clambering down the tree and dropping softly to the ground behind the group of five opponents.

Her signal instructed sElizabeth to lead a group of fours of the defenders from the flag area up to confront the flanking group. They would support the attack group soon but that group was made of the Ares cabin and would fight back hard, which bought her some time. She fingered her two rings, which were her swords Mind and _Noumenon_ (Intuition), and slowly followed the group, only to be brought up short by a hand pulling back on her ponytail and a celestial bronze blade being placed against her throat from behind. "Going somewhere Sam?" A very familiar voice whispered in her ear.

Samantha groaned. Of course he would know what she would be doing, he was smart enough to predict her and saying he knew her tendencies was an understatement. She didn't need to turn to see the smirk on Marcus Brooke's face behind her; instead she quickly began analyzing where she was and what she could do to get out of this situation. "Brooke, what did I say about pulling on my hair?" She asked as she turned her head to face him and fingering his sword.

The grin on his face did not waver. "Not to?"

Samantha silently fumed, freeing her hair from his grip and fully turned her body, aware of the sword still held against her throat. She fingered the blade again, "and what did you just do?" She asked, hoping to delay a few more seconds before he decided to move her as a prisoner.

Marcus grin was still on his face until shouts and the sound of metal clashing rang through the trees to their left. One glance was all it took for him to move his unwavering attention and Samantha took full advantage of it, shoving the blade away from her throat and angling her body to deliver a side kick into his bronze breastplate.

To his credit, Marcus took the kick quite well, only stumbling back a few feet but it was still enough time for Samantha to squeeze her rings and transform them into her pair of swords before he recovered and faced her, the sword now held in front of him against her two.

The pair circled each other warily in the small clearing, each taking in the surroundings and each other. Marcus was dressed in a full set of armour over a camp t-shirt and shorts with sneakers. Samantha could see his eyes were narrowed in concentration through the face guard of his helmet and noticed his sword drifting to the side, opening an angle for an attack when she hesitated. Something was different when she looked at Marcus and one eyebrow moved up, asking a silent question. Marcus's smile widened and he called out, "I told you she would notice, and it worked just as planned."

Samantha hesitated, not willing to glance around to look for who he was calling out to. Her battle senses would tell her if someone appeared nearby. "You're not using your dagger. Why the sword this round?"

The situation confused her immensely. Marcus always carried a knife that had been given to him years ago. Actually it had been her who had gifted it to him, but she shook her head before the memories could take over her mind and distract her. But this time he stood in front of her with a sword that did look familiar to her. Marcus's smile got wider if it was possible, "One, to distract you which was successful, and two, to trap you which was also successful."

Samantha glanced around. "Trap? Brooke you're supposed to be a smart guy. Alone against me in a small clearing with a sword isn't much of a trap. And since when did you get a sword anyway?"

Unfortunately, she failed to look down and did not see the glint of Celestial Bronze down by her feet. Just as she finished her sentence the long metal cable tightened from where it was hidden in the leaves and branches, immediately pulling her legs together and wrapping around her ankles. Samantha bit back a curse as she tumbled towards the ground and rolled as she landed on her shoulder, stopping in a sitting position and looked at her ankles.

Binding them together seemed to be a cable of celestial bronze, binding her ankles together. What surprised her was the seemingly lack of an end to the cable because it seemed to be one solid piece wrapped around her ankles. Glancing up at Marcus, she took in his now very wide smile, which she hadn't seen in a long time. "So this was all part of some brilliant plan to remove me from the game?"

Marcus simply shrugged. "It worked, so I can't complain. The hard part was getting you to not notice the new invention of the Hephaestus cabin, which I'm sure you've determined by now is a self-attaching cable that merges with itself so there's no chance of breaking."

He turned away, pressing something on his sword that caused it to glow briefly before seemingly collapsing in on itself until it became the knife that she had gifted to him. Samantha's eyes widened as Marcus turned his head and smirked again. "I've been a bit friendly with the Hephaestus cabin lately, Michael especially as you can see by the modifications here. The "Innovator" is still as good as ever. I'll have someone from the cabin come along to free you after the game, until then I hope you can hop well Sam."

Marcus turned his back and walked back towards where her team's flag was, Samantha glaring daggers at his back the entire way until he disappeared into the trees and she was alone in the clearing slumped against a tree. The cable around her ankles bit into the leather of her combat boots, making any leg movement painful and she was in the process of determining how far she could get with her legs bound when she heard shouting from a ways down the creek. She sighed, then her head swung around when she realized the shouting was coming from both sides of the creek as demigods converged on the boundary and exploded into cheers, signalling the end of the game.

 **A/N: And there it is! The first chapter that really didn't contain any of the other characters, but the story has to start somewhere right? This will be replacing the introduction completely so the story begins right on this chapter. Read, review, follow, fav, criticise, do whatever you guys feel like doing, I'll listen to it all. Also let me know if you feel like the story has way too many tangents or plotlines, I tend to lose direction and write my chapters as ideas come to the head. Thanks for reading!**

 **Now for what most of you are waiting for, the five main characters of this story will be:**

 **Samantha Tamaguchi – Daughter of Ares**

 **Marcus Brooke – Son of Hermes**

 **Alejandra Vitale – Daughter of Apollo**

 **Grayson Wilson – Daughter of Athena**

 **Jon Griffin – Son of Apollo**

 **Thanks again to everyone for your character submissions and I hope you all keep reading! - angelfirecho**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own characters, the rest of the characters are owned by their respective owners and everything else belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **Samantha**

Despite her bad mood and growing feeling that she had been responsible for her team's loss in the back of her mind, Samantha found it hard not to enjoy the campfire. Then again the only ones who didn't enjoy it ever were the kids in the infirmary and the Hypnos kids who slept through everything. Everyone was toasting marshmallows, singing along with the Apollo cabins and enjoying themselves. She allowed a small smile. 5 years attending of Camp Half-Blood and it amazed her how every time they did something it felt like she was doing it for the first time and enjoying it the same way. 

The capture the flag game hadn't gone as badly as she had thought. Despite being incapacitated by Marcus, her siblings had successfully broken through the Athena assault and secured the flag, losing only by a few meters in the race to the border. It was times like these, she mused, where the lack of armour had an advantage. Running without the extra 20 something pounds of armour may have won the game. Samantha snorted. Her strict no-armour policy was opposed greatly by her siblings, another difference that separated her from the rest of the cabin like a giant black line. A line that was simply bolstered by her rejection of heavy weapons, use of two swords, Asian heritage, elegant combat style and slim build, making her unique across both camps as a child of Ares or Mars. She shook her head. Being different was natural among demigods and she was making too much of a fuss over it. 

She turned her attention the rest of the cabins grouped around the fire, ignoring her siblings' argument over how to properly kill a hydra and looked for some of her friends. Unfortunately, the Romans had completed their bimonthly visit last week and were absent, but she spotted Marcus talking with a number of his siblings, Mara Reynolds the Oracle in conversation with Chiron down beside the fire and all the other cabins in deep conversation as the Apollo cabin prepared for another song. 

Samantha sat back and sighed. In her time at camp, the most trouble that they had had was a couple small quests to recover items for the Gods. Since the Second Giant War, nothing had happened and for once the dream of peace for demigods almost seemed a reality. It had been very quiet now for the demigods of Camp Half-Blood. 

And of course she had to blow it. 

Mara, who had been leaned over on her elbows, shot upright so fast she collided heads with a kid behind her. The kid was knocked over backwards but Mara's eyes had begun to glow green, letting us all know she was doing her Oracle-of-Delphi thing and would deliver a prophecy that could be sending demigods on a another quest. But nothing prepared anyone around the campfire for what came out of her smoke-filled mouth: 

_Traveller's son will lead five south then west  
_

 _To face Titans reborn before the real test_

 _Anger will face unleashed war's wrath_

 _Revenge is present along the North's path_

 _Success requires sacrifice, but will be in vain_

 _For the gone and defeated shall rise once again_

 __  
Mara collapsed onto the stool that a group of campers had rushed up behind her and soon blinked awake. She immediately asked one of the campers what the prophecy she had just spoken was and pulled out a sharpie to write it onto her jeans. The moment she had finished speaking the prophecy the entire camp had erupted into loud, unorganized discussion before Chiron pounded his hoof against the stone to call for quiet. "Heroes!" He bellowed. "You all have questions, but the prophecy has outlined rules. Five will be leaving on this quest, led by a boy from the Hermes cabin."

Over in the group of kids under the Hermes banner, Marcus rose unsteadily, causing shocked whispers to commence around him and Samantha felt something tighten in her chest. "It's me." He stated looking very resigned, and the way his expression was set made Samantha knew he had been hiding something related to this quest for some time now. "I've been having these dreams, of a deep voice in pitch black darkness and sometimes a stadium. It always calls to me, saying I will be the one to come face it."

Chiron nodded his head in approval. "You may take four companions with you. You may either accept volunteers for this quest or ask others to come with you."

Marcus nodded, turning to his best friend other than her: Jon Griffin, son of Apollo. "Jon? You willing to throw in with me on this one?"

Jon simply smiled. He was stretched out on one of the stone steps, lyre in hand looking every bit lazy as he could be. "Of course I'm in. It's my chance to see the world, to fight, to go down in history." He stood up and stretched a bit. "I'm always in."

Some of his siblings just shook their heads and laughed. Then one of them stood up; Alejandra Vitale. She raised her hand. "I volunteer for this quest if my idiot half-brother is going on this. Someone needs to balance out the cynical comments and I can help as a healer."

Marcus laughed a bit at the comment about Jon's cynicism and nodded. "Sure thing. Help is always welcome and I'm sure your healing talents will be put to good use. Welcome aboard Alex."

Then from the Athena cabin, someone in the back half-hidden by the shadows stood up and raised her hand. As she moved forward, Samantha recognized her as Grayson Wilson by her dark hair, which was different from the trademark Athena look. She hesitated a moment then spoke, her quiet voice loud and clear in the clearing. "I also volunteer for this quest."

She didn't give a reason, but she didn't have to. To Marcus, anyone who was willing was welcome and he nodded as well. "Glad to have a daughter of Athena on board as well. All quests recently seem to have one and I'm glad to keep the tradition going."

Then Marcus turned towards Samantha and opened his mouth but Samantha held up a hand to stop him. "You don't even need to ask Brooke. I'm in and you know it, I'm not letting you out there without me and I told you before I'll always be there to watch your back. I'm in."

Samantha and Marcus exchanged a look and nodded. Years ago they had promised each other if either got a quest, the other would be going on it. Now that it was happening, her stomach began churning. Everyone had to make it back on this quest. She didn't know all the people who were going on it, but that didn't matter. She was taking a responsibility here to protect the others and make sure they all got back alive, but at the same time there was a nagging doubt in her mind that she wouldn't be able to deliver and that someone would die. Her mind was also racing as she recounted the words of the prophecy. It predicted the Titans would be returning for a third time in history and that the quest involved facing several of them. Not good.

Chiron stomped his hoof on the stones once more for quiet. "Heroes, it's lights out for tonight. Cabin leaders and quest members will meet tomorrow at noon. Now off to bed, all of you!"

Everyone dispersed but Samantha immediately headed for Marcus, who had his head in his hands near the front of the pavilion. He looked up to see her approach and tried to compose himself before she sat down beside him, looking up at the stars stretch across the sky. They sat in silence for a couple minutes before Samantha broke it. "So, a quest huh? Just like we always wished we could go on when we were younger?"

Marcus just sighed. "Maybe when I was younger, it was more of the novelty of the hero. Now that the weight of what's going down is settling in, I'm not sure if the pressure is worth the title. Sure if I succeed I become a hero, but any one of us could die."

Marcus looked back down again and Samantha could tell there was something else he knew but wasn't saying but she didn't want to press him. Her friend had had a very rough night already and she didn't want to make it worse by forcing information out of him. Marcus stood up slowly. "I'm going to head to bed, see you at the meeting tomorrow?"

Samantha could only nod and watch as Marcus walked out of the pavilion into the darkness in the direction of the cabins. She considered going to the Big House to discuss the quest with Chiron but considering the time, decided against it and headed back to her cabin. _I'll do it in the morning_ , she thought as her head hit the pillow and she drifted off to sleep.

 **Chapter 2 complete! I apologize for the terrible prophecy, no idea how I could make it mysterious enough and the rhymes are a bit desperate but hey, the story goes on right? Also I do realize this is a rather boring and dull chapter, and I would skip it if I could but it's necessary for the story and we can't always have action and stuff in every chapter. Thanks for reading!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **Marcus  
**  
It was beginning. No. It wasn't supposed to be real, wasn't supposed to happen. It was just a dream, with no connection to the real world. Yet as Marcus told himself this, he knew it was hopeless. He was just denying the truth.

He knew he would be going on this quest. He didn't like it one bit and it terrified him, but it was true. As he lay on his bed, his mind swam with various possibilities of what could happen on this quest, most notably the hundreds of ways he and his friends could die. Despite the millions of thoughts flying through his brain, his mind slowly drifted off to sleep and the unwelcome dreams.

All demigods will tell you; dreams suck. They're almost never nice ones and usually have cryptic messages about impending doom or something that will kill you. Marcus's were no different. He stood once again in what seemed to be a football field in a large stadium with no lights and the moon above only casting shadows that had plagued his dreams for the past week. "So...the wannabe hero returns again. Hoping to find some useful information for your quest? Something that will make you look heroic?" The voice taunted.

The voice emerged from everywhere and anywhere, echoing around the high walls of the stadium and shaking the ground at Marcus's feet. He knew to remain silent; the voice always took his words and twisted them around to throw insults at him. The fact that he had returned made his stomach twist itself in knots. Then the voice broke out into laughter, devoid of any humorous emotions and sounded dark, almost insane as it shook the ground. "Perhaps I will tell you something about your quest. Look around you. Soon you will arrive here, to fight one of us. One of the five you travel with is fated to die, why not save the group the trouble and volunteer?"

Marcus silently stewed in his dream body but at the same time he was looking around the stadium he was standing in. He tentatively took a step forward, and when nothing happened he continued walking from where he had been standing near one of the goalposts towards the center of the field. The voice continued. "You've never been noticed, respected, given what you deserve by your best efforts. You'll be leading the quest but everyone knows you won't be looked to as the leader; it'll go to that Ares girl. Why not give yourself up for the sake of the quest? Maybe then the _real_ heroes can continue the quest and reach their doom at the end."

The booming laughter shook the stadium, slowly blacking out the dream. Marcus began to panic and sprinted towards center field, blackness eating away at the corner of his vision. Just as he was overwhelmed with darkness and the dream faded, he saw a blue T on the field as the booming laughter faded to nothingness.

Marcus awoke to the boom of thunder outside the window, covered in cold sweat with the words of the voice resonating in his ears. _Maybe then the real heroes can continue the quest_. He hated the voice, but it voiced some of his nagging fears for this quest. Maybe that was the point. Marcus sighed and rolled out of bed. There was a meeting about the quest at noon and since the prophecy had not been the clearest about the objectives of the quest, he knew it was going to be a long one.

Marcus never understood why all meetings were in the rec room around the ping-pong table. It's all they ever used the room for, so why not get an actual meeting table and put some whiteboards up on the wall? A couple maps wouldn't hurt either. Marcus was about to make that suggestion when Chiron wheeled into the room, causing all conversation in the room to fall silent. He was followed by an annoyed looking Samantha, dressed in an orange tank top, ripped denim shorts, a brown leather jacket and black combat boots, who leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest.

Chiron cleared his throat and looked around the room. "So first off, Mara can you please recite the prophecy given last night?"

Mara took a deep breath and recited.

 _Traveller's son will lead five south then west  
_

 _To face Titans reborn before the real test_

 _Anger will face unleashed war's wrath_

 _Revenge is present along the North's path_

 _Success requires sacrifice, but will be in vain_

 _For the gone and defeated shall rise once again_

There was silence in the room for a few moments before Chad from the Hephaestus cabin raised his hand. "The prophecy states you go south and then west. Any idea where you stop in the south before you go west?

Marcus gulped then nodded. "I think I do."

He began to describe his dream from last night, leaving out the taunts of the voice and trying not to show how much it affected him. "The logo on the field, the blue T and a football stadium, that's the Tennessee Titans right?"

Grayson from her place at the end of the ping-pong table nodded her head. "That's Nissan Stadium in Nashville, home of the Tennessee Titans."

Ethan Anderson from the Poseidon cabin paled. "You can't be saying that because the football team is named the Titans…"

Samantha twirled one of her blades around from her spot on the doorframe. "Just like the prophecy said, the Titans are back."

A loud bang drew the attention of everyone in the room to Jon, who had pushed his chair away from the table and banged his head against the wall. "Why couldn't we get the several thousand years between the First and Second Titan wars that Percy Jackson and crew got? They were supposed to have the worst luck in history given what they went through. Now you're saying our luck is worse and the Titans have returned after two decades?"

All eyes turned to Chiron, who seemed deep in thought. "I cannot say exactly why they have come back so quickly. On the other hand, several of the Titans participating in the last war were not destroyed. They simply retreated. It may be something caused by the remaining Titans that caused his quest to be issued."

No one in the room liked the idea of Titans shortening their reforming time from several thousand years to two decades. Marcus groaned internally as Sora Fujiwara from the Hades cabin raised his hand. "The prophecy also states 'Titan's reborn', so does that mean that some Titans have reformed within the past two decades?"

Silence greeted his statement as everyone attempted to recall the Titans that were defeated in the last war. None of the possibilities looked good. Marcus glanced at Mara. "So from what we can determine from the prophecy, the Titans have returned, we'll be facing several on this quest, our first destination is Nashville and our goal is to do what?"

Silence again at the table. Everyone was stumped as they realized the problem. There had always been something that started off the quest and thus the prophecy was revealed. Now that a quest was issued before an obvious problem, Marcus couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy about what was going to happen. Then Grayson spoke up. "It's obvious isn't it? We stop the Titans."

All eyes turned to the slim Athena girl, who flinched slightly under the multiple gazes. "What? It's the only course of action isn't it? Stop the Titans before they gather forces again and launch another attack on Olympuss?"

Jon groaned from his position against the wall. "So we're going on a quest to fight several Titans and destroy what is presumably their home base? Can we have some backup on this? Like the entire camp and a few gods?"

Chiron shook his head. "It is an issued quest, meaning that only five may go. If that Titans are indeed preparing for another strike on Olympus, I will notify them of the proceedings. In the meantime all campers are to speed up their training as best as they can to be prepared for anything that may happen."

Immediately several voices rose in arguments against what Chiron had ordered but he held up a hand for silence. "That's about all that we can do for the quest group now. I suggest you gather your supplies before getting a good night's rest before tomorrow. I'll see you all in the morning."

The meeting dispersed without argument, Marcus briefly meeting Samantha's eyes with raised eyebrows before she shook her head and disappeared through the door, the rest of the cabin leaders following.

Marcus wished he could say that he slept that night. His nervousness kept him up well past midnight, and immediately after falling asleep he entered another dream. If it was up to him, he would've stayed awake and avoid dreams sbut with a quest beginning tomorrow, he felt like there would be few opportunities to sleep in his near future.

This dream wasn't in a stadium like the night before. In fact, it didn't seem to be in anything at all. Everywhere Marcus turned it was pitch black, and the voice that resonated from the darkness was also different. It was very low, sounding somewhat subdued but nonetheless evil as it gloated. "Finally after all this time out of the spotlight, I will finally have my moment to lead our armies to glory! Forget Kronos or Atlas, this time _I_ will shine above the rest!"

Marcus remained silent as the voice continued, seemingly unaware of his presence. Then another voice joined the first. "You idiot. It's not even your job to shine, and you were never destined for greatness. You were the reason why Tartarus emerged in a corporeal form years ago and disintegrated us. Now you're saying you will lead us? The vast armies of the Titans?"

"We will have success! Under you, Atlas and Kronos we have never found victory, so now it will be I who leads our armies to the destruction of Olympus!" The first voice retorted, rising and falling like the being was not used to raising their voice. "I lead us now, and you will follow my orders!"

The other voice snorted and what sounded like a blowtorch resonated through the darkness before silence. The first voice began laughing; a sound that seemed to Marcus like laughter was a foreign concept as blackness edged into the corners of Marcus's vision. "They have no idea what is happening. Let the puny demigods come! They will find the gauntlet is something they cannot run this time and survive!"

 **A/N: Chapter 3 complete! Quest will begin in the next chapter so I hope everyone still continues to read. To be honest I began this story so I could try to appreciate all the efforts of the authors I have read for the past year and I can say it now, it's a heck of a lot harder to write a story than most people think. Making it unique is probably the hardest of all, but you already know that. Anyway I hope you all continue reading and see you all soon!**

 **\- angelfirecho**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own characters, the rest of the characters are owned by their respective owners and everything else belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **Marcus POV**

Standing atop Half-Blood Hill with Chiron, Marcus shouldered his backpack and tapped his foot on the ground. It was early in the morning, probably around 8 o'clock and Argus was waiting down at the bottom of the hill in one of the camp vans to drive the group into the city.

As he looked back towards the camp he saw Samantha and Grayson emerge from the common area talking and begin the trek towards the hill, feeling a twinge of jealousy. Despite this being his quest, Marcus knew that almost all of them looked towards Samantha as a leader. She was their best combatant and her independence rivaled none, mostly because of how she was different from all of her siblings, past and present. She was deadly, strong-minded and quite beautiful, although that last point he told himself he would never linger over. He swallowed nervously. This was his quest and his chance to prove himself that he was worth of being looked at equally with someone far stronger and better than he was. He idly wondered if this was how the famous Percy Jackson had felt before his first quest, although in this case Marcus had 4 years on Percy and was considerably more experienced, although not in the real world. Also the Gods were not going to destroy the world by the summer solstice if he failed. Instead the Gods and the Titans would destroy the world. No pressure.

Caught up in his thoughts, Marcus barely registered the tap on his shoulder, turning to see Jon's face up close and personal and proceeding to yelp and falling backwards. Jon immediately burst out laughing along with Alejandra who was behind him as Grayson and Samantha came up over the hill, both with eyebrows raised as Marcus rolled over on the ground blushing.

Samantha dropped the duffel she was carrying and stood over Marcus, holding out a hand, which he accepted and stood back up. The rest of the questing demigods lined up beside them, facing Chiron beneath Thalia's tree and Marcus was very aware of Samantha beside him, their shoulders brushing.

Looking at Samantha, dressed similar to as she was in the meeting yesterday, Marcus felt a ball of emotions rolling around in his chest but couldn't recognize exactly what those emotions were. Marcus did his best to push the emotions aside and looked at the others.

Grayson stood on the other side of Samantha in a hoodie, jeans and knee length boots, then Alejandra in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers and Jon, who was flipping his magical penknife from hand to hand, dressed in board shorts, sneakers and a button-up shirt over a t-shirt. Chiron looked over the group for a few moments before speaking. "I believe everything was reviewed at the meeting yesterday. You have a goal, a location to start from and the other members of your quest. No pressure, but your quest may determine the future of civilization as we know it.

Jon snorted. "No pressure at all. Just kill a few Titans, prevent another Titan war and everything will be sunshine and rainbows."

Alejandra rolled her eyes and punched him while Chiron looked faintly amused. "Good luck. And please do try not to stress out about the possible consequences of the quest."

This time there were several snorts from members of the group, but they all turned to look one last time at camp, their one safe haven on the planet and home to most of them, before passing through the borders to Argus's van.

As the group trudged down the hill, Marcus glanced back up at Thalia's pine tree, seeing Chiron now in full centaur form holding his bow up in a send-off salute. He wondered how often Chiron had to do that salute, and how often the heroes he sent off came back.

Argus dropped them off at a bus station in the East Side of Manhattan. The group bought their tickets for the Greyhound going to Tennessee for 10:30, checking that the time was 10:00am. They sat down on the bench beside the platform where the bus was supposed to arrive in silence for a few minutes. Jon was the first to speak. "Tennessee for sure right?"

Alejandra proceeded to smack Jon in the back of the head. "If it wasn't then we just wasted a good $600. Besides, you have any better ideas?"

Jon mutely rubbed the back of his head and sighed, then looked down as his stomach rumbled. As the others burst into laughter Samantha raised an eyebrow. "Didn't eat this morning?" 

Jon shook his head. "Woke up a bit late. Can we go find a place to eat? We'll make it quick, bus doesn't leave for half an hour and we can just run in and grab something. There's a Subway a couple streets over."

Marcus's stomach growled a bit as well at the thought of food while Grayson behind him rolled her eyes. "Boys," she muttered but then conceded that they could grab some food.

The group grabbed their bags and made a quick trek down the street, passing by an alley on the way to the Subway. Jon had just put his hand on the door when the entire group heard a low growling behind them, turning to find two hellhounds lumber out of the alley.

Marcus immediately looked around, despite all five of them freezing on the steps of the Subway. Mid-morning on a Thursday meant not too much traffic nearby, but they had to pull back to somewhere out of the way. Grayson tapped his shoulder. "There's an alley about 8 meters behind us, bring the hellhounds into it?"

Samantha started shoving the group down the street, glancing behind her as the hellhounds advanced. "Go! Alley now!"

They didn't need to be told twice. Everyone bolted down the street, Marcus hazarding a glance behind to see the hellhounds begin pounding after them. They entered the alley, moving around a couple dumpsters and set up at the end. Samantha grimaced. "Bad choice of battleground with numbers advantage, but can't be helped because of the mortals. Spread out as far as you can, figure out where you'll position yourselves and get ready."

They all whirled as the growl of the hellhounds became much louder as they entered the alley. Jon near the left wall flipped out his penknife, only for a lyre to appear in his hands. Marcus glanced his way and noticed. "Jon! Now's not the time for this!"

Jon's facial expression suggested the same thought was running through his head and he began fumbling with the lyre as the hellhounds approached. Samantha had both her swords out with Grayson beside her with her daggers, Alejandra had taken up a position on a dumpster with an arrow nocked in her bow. The two hellhounds were large, taking up the width of the alley as they approached side by side. Marcus quickly switched his dagger into a sword and decided to make the first move, lunging forward and trusting the others to distract the other hellhound.

Unfortunately for Marcus, the first stab into the first hellhound didn't kill it. Despite his sword sinking up to the hilt in the side of the hellhound, the blade only seemed to annoy it as it threw its body against him, tossing him against the wall of the alley without a weapon. On the bright side, his stab had distracted the hellhound long enough for Samantha to go to work on its face, landing several blows before the hellhound reeled backwards. The down side was he had nothing to attack or defend with and was now quite sore from where he was thrown into the wall.

Jon still seemed to be struggling with his lyre but had adapted enough to try and act as a distraction, pulling back and forth while playing notes on the lyre to disorient the second hellhound. Grayson was looking for an opening in the back while Alejandra continued to rain arrows down upon either hellhound. Several arrows sticking out of the back and sides of both gave testament to her efforts. Rolling behind first hellhound, Marcus yelled out, "Samantha! _Noumenon!_ "

Fighting together for four years had its perks. Samantha immediately jumped away from the hellhound and tossed the smaller sword, called _Noumenon_ , she held in her left hand up and over the hellhound. Marcus jumped, snatching the sword out of the air and landed in a roll, slashing at the underside of the hellhound as Samantha drove her remaining sword through its mouth.

The hellhound gave one last whimper before disintegrating into a cloud of monster dust and fur. Turning, Marcus saw Jon give the second hellhound one last whack over the head with his lyre before an arrow hit its mark and this time did its job, dissolving the second hellhound. The group gathered near the mouth of the alley, all breathing heavily as Jon finally switched his lyre back into penknife form, grumbling about the jokes of his father and why it couldn't have been a sword or bow.

No one seemed to have suffered any injuries other than ripped clothing, bruises and a couple of claw marks on Alejandra. Checking the time, Marcus's eyes widened. "We're late, get back to the bus station now!"

Making their way back to the bus station in a hurry, the group came up to the platform where their bus was to find all the passengers that had been waiting with them before gone. Alejandra swore and kicked the nearest light post. "Now what do we do?"

Marcus sat down heavily on the bench for a moment before hearing voices coming from the nearby alley. He quickly hushed the group before moving over to the wall closer to the alley to listen better. "Nashville right? Alright everyone on the bus!"

A fair bit of shouting and stamping of feet on steps followed the voice and soon the sounds faded. Marcus glanced at the rest of the group, nodded and they walked around the corner towards the bus, which was parked far back in the alley away from the platform. He witnessed the last of the passengers who had been waiting to get on the bus disappear through the door and quickly ran up to the bus, the rest of the quest members close behind.

They climbed up the steps, surprised that no one requested a ticket from them and they hurriedly found the remaining empty seats at the back of the bus, avoiding eye contact with any of the other passengers before they sat down.

Up front, the driver finally sat down and closed the door. With a hiss, the bus began moving out of the alley and turned the corner, merging into Manhattan traffic. Marcus breathed a sigh of relief before a hiss came from in front of him. And it wasn't the bus. " _Demigodsss?_ "

 **A/N: Haha cliffhanger! First time ever writing a combat scene, I apologize if it was a bit short. Hopefully I can puts some other POV's into the story (they're not exactly POV, more like what Riordan did in the HoO series). Again thanks for reading everyone, I do appreciate all feedback and hope you all like it! See you all soon!**

 **\- angelfirecho**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own characters, the rest of the characters are owned by their respective owners and everything else belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **Marcus POV**

 _Oh Styx_. Slowly raising his head, he saw a _dracaena_ slithering up the aisle towards the demigods in the back. Now that he looked around properly, he realized all the other passengers on the bus were monsters. He locked eyes with Samantha, who mouthed, _"We are so screwed_."

He completely agreed.

The _dracaena_ stopped, towering over him on her snake trunk legs. " _Ssssooo, more demigodssss to ssssupport the Titansss? Jusst like the last war?"_

Marcus cast his thoughts back, trying to think about what happened. Jon beat him to it though. "Of course we are here to support the Titans in their fight against our ungrateful and unloving parents. We want nothing to do with them!"

Now Marcus remembered. In the last war many demigods had fought for the Titans because they resented the Gods for ignoring them. Now it seemed like the Titans were recruiting again. "Yeah! Screw the Gods, it's time for a new era in the world!"

The _dracaena_ hissed, looking at some of the other monsters on the bus before nodding and slithering back down the aisle. Marcus let out a sigh of relief, then opened his eyes to see a telekhine staring at him and gulped. Maybe they weren't in the clear after all. He glanced first at Samantha beside him, then Grayson who was behind him to see if either of their strategists was coming up with a plan. Samantha seemed lost in thought while Grayson met his eyes and shook her head. "No escapes from this area of the bus. Nearest exit is the roof halfway down the bus. Estimating 40 or so monsters in our way, _dracaena_ , harpies and telekhines." She whispered.

Marcus hesitated. "Windows won't open?"

Grayson shook her head. Marcus thought a little more. "Can we cut through the side of the bus from the washroom?"

Now Samantha entered the conversation. "Cutting through the back wall of the bathroom will hit the engine. And monsters will detect our weapons. They sense Celestial Bronze. I say just wait it out, see what happens."

Jon and Alejandra across the aisle seemed to be involved in a conversation with a Harpy about the bad taste of music of Apollo, both scowling but Jon was sending nervous glances towards Marcus.

Marcus sat back against the seat and tried to think up ideas. It wasn't helping that Grayson was behind him muttering, "Approximately 17% chance of survival in frontal assault, outnumbered eight or nine to one, battle plan three is not an option."

 _Things like this are not supposed to happen._ He grumbled to himself. They were literally going undercover in the enemy army as _themselves_. Not too bright on the monsters but he couldn't fault them for making the incorrect assumption. Now he just had to not think about what would happen if they realized they made an incorrect assumption.

It was a long bus ride, nearly 10 hours to Tennessee from Manhattan. They organized a sleep and watch pattern when Samantha and Grayson had both estimated that it was safe to do so for the time being and they got some rather fitful rest with the number of monsters in their vicinity. Hours later, the whole group was awake as the bus entered Tennessee.

"We don't have a choice with what we can do! If we're lucky this should take us right to one of the Titans, whichever one is leading them."

Heads turned around the bus at Jon's slight outburst in his argument with Alejandra, which had escalated in volume over the past few minutes and he paled considerably when he noticed the monsters looking in his direction. Then a hiss came from further up the bus. " _It sssshould be Atlasss. The General sssshould lead us_."

Then the bark of a telekhine came from just in front of Marcus. "Hyperion is the strongest! He should be our leader!"

And just like that, the bus erupted in voices and barks and hisses. Some harpies took to the air to argue at a higher level. Chaos ensued, with monsters shoving themselves around the bus. A _dracaena_ was thrown down the aisle into the bathroom door beside Samantha before she got up and drew her sword, slithering back down the aisle. Marcus couldn't believe what was going on, and soon the sound of swords clashing filled the air.

Grayson quickly outlined a plan. "Kill the driver, cause the bus to hit the rail or something to throw them all off. Then we can either go through the monsters to get to the exit. If we're lucky, they'll be too busy fighting each other to notice us. If we're unlucky, they'll notice us and we will be fighting through them all."

Alejandra nodded and the two Apollo siblings stood on their seats, bows drawn back. On Grayson's signal, they both shot towards the driver. Alejandra's arrow was unintentionally intercepted by a harpy in midair and she vaporized with a screech. Fortunately, Jon's arrow found its mark and the bus mad a sudden sharp right to the edge of the road, throwing everyone around the bus. Marcus looked towards Grayson, whom had her eyes wide as the bus hurtled towards a ditch since the bus had passed by the end of the guard rail. The bus flew off the shoulder of the road, getting some airtime before it slammed into the ditch. The impact threw all the demigods into the seats in front of them and wasn't much kinder to the monsters, considering the number of cries and hisses that came from the front of the bus as Marcus peeled his forehead off the seat in front of him. The demigods slowly pulled themselves to their feet. Alejandra's backpack had disappeared during the crash and they didn't have time to go find it, so they pushed forward, Samantha leading the way. Unfortunately, the monsters did notice their movements and turned towards them in the crowded bus aisle, a _dracaena_ at the front. " _Going ssssomewhere?_ "

Samantha had a grin on her face that she only wore when she was going to enjoy herself very much. "Nope, but I hear you're going on a trip. One-way vaporization to Tartarus courtesy of me."

Now what needs to be understood is that Samantha didn't earn the nickname "Whirlwind" for nothing. Her combat style involves a lot of spinning with her blades, becoming a deadly whirlwind of celestial bronze to all metal. Marcus and Grayson got to work on breaking through the nearest window while Samantha leaped forward, whirling through the ranks of monsters who could only come to face her one at a time because of the narrow aisle while the Apollo siblings continued to shower arrows down the bus.

Marcus's blade cut through the window like a hot knife through butter and they kicked the window out, leaping from the edge to the soft ground below, noticing for the first time the number of cars that had stopped near the crash and the sound of sirens in the distance. He turned back towards the bus, catching Grayson then yelling, "Samantha! Jon! Alex! Get out of there!"

Alejandra was the first to appear in the window, launching one last arrow before she dropped out of the window. Jon appeared next, but just as he was about to jump, they all heard Samantha yell in rage. Jon stopped and disappeared back inside the bus and to everyone's confusion; a bright light appeared within the bus causing them all to turn away. When the light died down, Samantha was being shoved out of the window by a panicked looking Jon while the shouts of confused monsters was heard from inside the ruined bus. Marcus caught Samantha as she leaped down, Alejandra handing her a piece of ambrosia, which she quickly stuffed in her mouth as Jon joined them and they took off for the nearest exit ramp that read Nissan Stadium.

The distance to the stadium was rather short, only a few miles hike and there were lots of signs to helpfully point the way in the direction of Nissan Stadium. Soon they found themselves crouched in a bushy area, looking out on the parking lot that was occupied, and it wasn't occupied with cars. Stretched out across all available space was the encampment of an army. All sorts of monsters, from Laistrygonian giants to platoons of _dracaena_ to harpies were present, along with hundreds of tents and fires sending smoke into the sky. Alejandra took in the army laid out in front of them and shook her head. "How the heck are we going to get around this?"

Then Samantha's head shot up in the direction of a clump of bushes nearby. Jon seemed amused. "What happened Sam? Bushes going to attack you?"

Samantha didn't give a sign that she had heard Jon's teasing, then tensed and took off towards the bush, the sounds of scrambling and twigs breaking coming from the bush as she jumped straight over the bush and the sound of a struggle and crashing came from the other side. The other demigods scrambled around the bush to find Samantha on top of a monster, holding down a small telekhine with her sword against its throat. It seemed young, and tried to bare its teeth at them before Samantha pushed a little harder with her blade, causing it to stop moving.

Samantha thought of an idea, looking down at the telekhine and asked, "ever heard of the story The Boy who Cried Wolf?"

The telekhine bared his teeth. "I know of The Boy who Cried Telekhine. Heard it all the time as a pup, great ending. For the telekhine."

Alejandra rolled her eyes, but did seem amused that monsters also had bedtime stories that taught morals. "Not the point here."

Samantha leaned over the telekhine and he flinched slightly. "So here's what you're going to do. You're going to go running down there into the camp screaming about a demigod army coming in from the other side of the stadium."

She looked down at the telekhine right in the eye. "And you will do it, unless you'd prefer one of Alex's celestial bronze arrows in your back."

The telekhine looked terrified and Marcus almost felt bad for it, seeing how young it looked, and he nodded. "I'll do it, please don't kill me."

Samantha glared a little more before she drew away her sword and stood up. "Go."

As they watched the telekhine run back through the bushes Marcus turned to Samantha. "You sure this is a good idea?"

Samantha glanced at him. "Ever read the Art of War Brooke?"

Marcus shook his head and she continued. "Point 18 is _all warfare is based on deception_. The telekhine we just sent is our deception. The monsters will be distracted, prepare for the demigod army and be confused. That's where we just walk right through them while they're busy dealing with things that are supposedly more important than us."

They all watched as the telekhine scrambled down the hill, Alejandra's bow trained on him as he shouted of the incoming demigods prepared for war. The scattering and noise that followed was just like Samantha said, and the five of them let the confusion build for a couple minutes before they emerged from the bush and jogged down into the encampment. None of the monsters gave them a second glance.

Unfortunately for them, the telekhine was smarter than they thought. That was probably something that wasn't accounted for in Samantha's plan, and Marcus would've teased her about it if they weren't about to die. Because Alejandra had to lower her bow so they could walk through the camp of monsters without attracting attention as a hostile group, they got just over halfway through the camp before a shout was heard above the chaos. "There are the demigods!"

The mistake they all made was stopping in their tracks as a path opened up so they could see the telekhine standing in a clump of giants pointing their way. He seemed to be smirking as he stood among the giants, a smirk that disappeared once Alejandra's arrow buried itself in his face and he vaporized into dust, but the damage was done. It didn't need a tactical genius to guess the next plan as Marcus yelled out, "RUN!"

The scene around them reminded Marcus of something trying to escape as two cliffs collapse behind them. The monsters swarmed towards them as they took off towards the stadium, running for their lives through the empty camp in front of them and the large amount of monsters behind them. Glancing back, he saw Samantha deflect one or two arrows coming towards them as Alejandra returned the occasional arrow and Jon ran at the back with a scavenged shield. As they approached the stadium, Marcus noticed one of the gates with open doors and pointed. "There!"

They made it through the gate with about a meter distance between them and a group of Laistrygonians that were bending down to grab Jon. As the made it through the gate, the Liastrygonians slammed into an invisible wall and were knocked backwards, flattening a squad of _dracaena_. All of them breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the horde of monsters pound on the invisible wall outside the gate and then looked around. They were just inside the ticket accepting area of the stadium and looked around the concourse. Then a voice boomed over the PA system of the stadium. "Welcome demigods! Welcome to the first and last opening day of the Titan's victory season over the Olympians!"

 **A/N: So I leave for university on Sunday, so updates may be slower than normal so I wrote the longest chapter yet to hopefully tie you guys over until next time. There will be minimum one week until the next chapter, so sorry. I'm probably falling into that trap of all authors where updates become slower and slower until they barely exist but I'll try my best. Special thanks to everyone who reviewed, read and actually liked my story, it's quite flattering to know there's people who enjoy what you write. I'll do my best, I had big plans for this story and have no intention of letting it die out on me or you wonderful readers. Thanks again and I'll update soon.**

 **-angelfirecho**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own characters, the rest of the characters are owned by their respective owners and everything else belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **A/N: Since I'd hate to disappoint all those who seem to be religiously following me (back when I updated regularly), I'm back, yay! So from this point on updates are going to be a lot slower, hopefully not as long as the gap between the last on and this one. I apologize to all of you who have been following this story rather closely but school is taking up a ton of time now that I'm in university so unfortunately it can't be helped, but thank you to all the support, the reviews and for me knowing that you guys are there to read so I'm not simply putting it up to empty air. Thanks everyone and hope you guys keep reading!**

 **Quick note, it has been brought up several times that I describe the clothing of the characters too much. I've noticed it is a bit over the top but my reasoning is that I prefer to be able to visualize exactly what I am reading. For those of you who noticed, it probably won't be happening anymore in this story except for new characters unless I decide to do a full Aphrodite makeover thing or something, which I'm debating on still. I also just realized after reading through the story on my iPod that none of my line breaks actually made it through the word processor, so I'm working to fix that, sorry if it confused anyone with sudden time jumps with no explanation. Anyway, on with the story and thanks for being so patient everyone!**

 **Marcus POV**

Despite the introduction over the PA system, Marcus did not realize that most of that introduction wasn't for them. As the group emerged from the tunnel onto the field, they look in a stadium of monsters cheering as more took their seats, probably from the army outside that they had run through. Standing at center field, clad in full black Stygian Iron armour was the Titan himself.

"Koios," Grayson answered the unspoken question for the whole group. Marcus nodded, slowly taking in the 10-foot tall immortal standing half a football field away. The diamond in the center of his black breastplate seemed to glint and his eyes were a bright blue-white, almost glowing behind his bear helmet. The Titan spread his hands, "Welcome demigods. I trust you had few difficulties approaching your doom here in Titan Stadium?"

Behind him, Marcus heard Grayson mutter, "You didn't purchase the rights to naming the stadium from Nissan yet."

Jon snorted in an attempt to cover up his laughter at Grayson's very blunt statements as he tried to think up a response. He hesitated for a moment too long though, and it was Samantha that answered, "I think it'll be renamed to Demigod Field by the time we finish with you and your brethren!"

Koios roared with laughter, which was very deep and chilling sound. "You have spine demigod, I like it. But I see the future! I can predict your fates, what will happen, who will be sacrificed in this war! It will begin with one of you, and fate is something you cannot change. So son of Hermes, would you like to volunteer so one of your friends doesn't take the downfall?"

Marcus froze. There it was again. One of them was fated to die and he was asked to step forward and offer himself for the sake of the team. He glanced sideways towards Samantha, who gave a tight shake of her head and he nodded. He took a step forward towards Koios, causing a gasp from everyone behind him. "We are here to tell you that we are all going to make it through to the end. We are here to put a stop to you and we will succeed in the end, with everyone pulling through. We won't bow to what you prophesize and simply lie down and accept it, we'll fight for it all the way to the end."

Koios smiled thinly. "I have seen your kind in the past, demigod. They thought they could avoid the prophecy. Avoid what has been the Fates decree. But what you must realize is that _I_ recognize the Fates. I see the future, demigod, and maybe you aren't a part of it."

He reached back and unsheathed his enormous surfboard-like sword, which glinted a dark, cold gray in the light of the sun and held it in front of him. "I gave you the opportunity, traveler, now shall we determine what fate has predicted for you?"

Marcus didn't have time to answer as Koios closed the distance with blinding speed, barely able to get his sword up in time to block the blow as the Titan slammed into him, his shoes digging into the turf as he tried to push back. Koios's dark face grinned as he disengaged their blades and kicked Marcus back before turning to block blows from both Grayson and Samantha simultaneously. "You truly believe you can defeat me? I am a TITAN! You puny demigods could never hope to defeat me!"

Samantha, who had both her blades pressed against Koios's massive sword grit her teeth and quickly pulled one blade back and slashed it across the knuckles of Koios under the sword guard. "We can defeat you and will defeat you. We have it in ourselves."

Koios roared and pulled away, golding ichor dripping from the back of his hand as he glared. Grayson using his momentary distraction to roll behind his legs and use her knives to cut as many spots as possible in the exposed back of the legs. Koios gave another roar of rage and turned to bring his sword down on her before she could move out, but Marcus jumped in to catch the sword with his as Grayson rolled out from under the deadly blades again.

Samantha yelled, "Cover me!" to Jon and Alex as she charged Koios from behind.

Marcus could barely see her around the Titan as he strained against the Titan, being pushed back by the enormous immortal. Just as their swords disengaged, Grayson appeared beneath the Titan's guard again, landing a couple slashes to the belly and leg armour, but her appearance caused both Jon and Alejandra to hesitate to shoot as she was in the way between them and Koios.

In that moment of hesitation, Koios shoved Grayson backwards and turned with blinding speed, swinging his sword towards Samantha. He hit her full broadside with the flat of his enormous sword, sending her flying backwards across the field, landing on the turf and bouncing once before she hit the goalpost. She lay there unmoving, her blades lying beside her limp hands as what sounded like a foghorn blasted through the stadium. Glancing up, Marcus saw a couple fireworks shoot off into the sky and the scoreboard now read: Titans: 7, Olympus: 0.

Marcus desperately wished to run over to Samantha's limp form and see if she was ok, but the Titan between him and her made it rather difficult. Monsters in the crowd cheered and jeered as Koios raised his massive sword again and marched towards them. Everyone glanced nervously at each other and their eyes rested on Marcus, who almost panicked in the moment. Luckily, one of Alejandra's arrows found a chink in the armour and Koios roared, pulling the arrow out and golden ichor began dripping from the wound. "Insect! You can't do anything to me! Why don't you all just put your weapons down and give it up instead? I can foresee your failure!"

Everyone glanced at Marcus again, who grit his teeth and clenched his hand as he looked down. _Let it go for now_ , he told himself. _Like she would say, anger in battle leads to recklessness and ultimately getting killed_. He raised his head slowly and met the eyes of the Titan, thinking about how he had swatted Samantha aside like a fly and let emotions flow through him for a moment. "Foresight isn't everything, you can't expect it all. Things like me are what changes our fate."

Alejandra and Jon both continued to fire arrows from different ranges while Grayson and Marcus closed in to try and keep him distracted. Marcus personally had no idea how to defeat a Titan, not being able to recall if they were invulnerable or had any other special combat ability, but he knew that they were in trouble despite outnumbered the Titan four to one, especially with Samantha being their missing fighter. Odds are nice, he thought, especially in gambling. He realized he had gotten distracted when an arrow whizzed by his face and embedded itself in Koios's armour chink in his arm just as he was about to bring his sword down on Marcus. He instinctively rolled away to the side, bringing his sword up to meet Koios's with a huge clash that shoved Marcus back a few feet but he tried to hold his ground. He could feel his arms shaking from the pressure of the swords as Koios's blue-white eyes bore into his, and then suddenly he wasn't in the battle anymore.

Marcus looked around, seeing nothing but a mountain and the black stone of the ruins of what seemed to be a palace. Koios's voice sounded in his head. "Look around you demigod. This is the past, what once was before we returned. Now as we rise again, Mount Othyrs rises with us."

Marcus's eyes widened as the stone seemed to swirl, slowly building up into a menacing palace of black obsidian. "This is the future demigod. What can you do to stop it?"

Blinking, Marcus exited the vision in time to be thrown backwards by Koios, tumbling down to the ground and rolling a couple feet, losing his sword in the process. He scrambled to his feet and dove for his sword as Koios's huge sword created a massive hole in the turf where he was standing. Rolling, he came up with his sword and met Koios again, this time with Jon firing several arrows into chinks in Koios's armour but they didn't seem to hurt him, just irritate him as he pushed Marcus back and turned towards where the Apollo kids were still launching arrows.

Grayson took Koios's momentary distraction from the arrows to get inside his guard and lay a couple slashes across his back armour, cutting a gash on the second cut before rolling out from beneath his sword and scrambling away. Koios roared and turned towards her, with Marcus dashing forward to take advantage of the window of opportunity. Unfortunately for him, Koios seemed to hear him and turned towards him at the last moment as he took his swing in full stride. Instead of his blade cutting through the gap that Grayson had caused previously, Marcus's sword glanced off the large diamond in the center of Koios's breastplate with a loud clang and he staggered backwards as Koios seemed to breathe deeply for a moment in the middle of the fight.

The first hint that he had made a mistake was a ping sound that seemed to originate from the diamond. Then it sparkled like the North Star and let loose a shock wave of force that Marcus briefly recalled was an ability of the titans before it hit him. The force of the blast threw Marcus back 30 yards, rolling across the turf as it scraped and burned his skin until he slid to a stop near the benches along one side of the field. The rest of the demigods weren't looking much better, everyone rolling over and slowly getting to their feet. The worst seemed to be Alejandra, who was currently the closest to Koios as he approached her dazed form. Shot rolled onto her back as reached her, placing an armoured boot down on her hair to pin her down to the turf. "The first blood of our new war." He gloated as he raised his sword above his head.

Marcus wasn't sure who screamed first, whether it be him, Jon and Grayson all screaming, "Alex!" or Alejandra herself screaming as the sword seemed to approach her in slow motion, but it was drowned out by an explosion of light that caused him to throw his hands up as a shock wave blew him backwards again. This time he was thrown backwards over the benches he had just been standing up in front of and rolled to a stop against the wall beneath the stands of the stadium, but kept his eyes squeezed tight as the light burned through his eyelids, groaning as he turned his head away.

As the light slowly faded away, Marcus pushed off from the wall, took a look around and gasped. Where Koios had stood was simply a charred, black silhouette that simply dissolved into the wind over a shocked Alejandra. The silence was overwhelming, causing Marcus to turn and realize there wasn't a monster left in the stadium. Just dust that blew all around the entire team. Soon, all eyes turned to Jon, who was standing at the center of a charred circle on the ground with a glowing white light surrounding him. He glanced nervously at each one of the demigods around the field, never meeting their eyes before he ran towards Alejandra's dazed form. Marcus shook his head to clear it before he sprinted towards Samantha, dropping to his knees beside her and cradling her head as he checked her body for wounds. "Sam, wake up, come on, we gotta move out of here."

Her brown eyes opened slowly, unfocused and blinking as she tried to look at Marcus's concerned face over her body. It took a lot of willpower not to melt in her gaze, as cute as it was when she got that confused look, but he stood up and held out his hand to pull her up as the rest of the team began to gather around them. Marcus's eyes met Samantha's as she stood up and she nodded, indicating she was mostly ok as Alejandra started checking her for injuries. Turning towards Jon, he opened his mouth but was almost immediately cut off. "Marcus please not now, I don't know what it was or how I did it, but it's a lot of power and I don't want to make the stress level worse right now."

One of Marcus's eyebrows went up. This was very far from the Jon that he knew so well, who thrived on taking what he got and running from it. He seemed almost crushed inside, confused and conflicted as to what he would do but Marcus respected his wish and dropped the subject. Grayson seemed to not have any injuries besides a few rips in her clothes, Alejandra looked shaken up but she still checked on all the others with her same veteran level experience of a medic and Samantha was as steely as always. Glancing around, Marcus nodded. "Good job here guys, pretty unexpected and hard, but we have to keep moving forward. Let's see what we can get from this place and get out of here. Long road ahead."

Meanwhile the scoreboard behind them read: Titans: 7, Olympus: Too Much.

 **A/N: Again guys I'm really sorry about how slowly I'm sending out chapters now. I don't have a ton of free time with the amount of work and extra-curriculars I'm doing and I don't get a ton of time to focus on the story like I used to. I'll do my best, not sure when the next update will be, before Christmas for sure but the next 2 weeks are a no because of mid-terms. But an exciting thing is the next POV will be Jon's, so the first one from someone else's OC** **. I'm pretty excited to write it so see you all next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 **Jon POV**

 **A/N: finally someone else's POV! Again I'm really sorry, I'm a terrible author here with nearly two months between chapters, I promise in the new year it'll be quicker and I'll explain why later on. Thanks again for reading, and without further ado, here it is from Jon's POV.**

Jon was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way this quest was going. As he looked out the window at the scenery rushing by from the train, he thought about how he had been useless and useful at the same time on this quest, but it was leaning more towards him being useless. In the first fight of the quest he had been completely useless with his magical penknife turning into a lyre instead of a bow or a knife. _Thanks Dad_. He figured it was probably his dad's idea of a joke to occasionally have it become a lyre, but in a combat situation it was terrible and made him unable to properly help against the hellhounds. His mood following that fight had been anything but sunny and Alex had spent a fair bit of time trying to lift his spirits.

Then he got distracted with the bus fight. Initially, all of Alex's work in trying to calm him down went out the window because he was mentally beating himself up for not noticing that all the bus passengers. He still had no idea how they had walked right onto a bus full of monsters and nobody noticed. No one! And the nerve of that monster to trash-talk his father's taste in music! He saw Alex smirk a bit at him as he clenched and unclenched his hands thinking about it. It took a lot of self-control not to decapitate that monster right then and there, assuming his penknife turned into something useful. He let out another frustrated sigh as he stared out at the countryside zooming by the train. Everything seemed to be the exact same outside the window, much different than the turns and twists that has been his life the last couple days.

Being a demigod before had seemed like such a sweet deal when he had arrived a year ago. All the training was cool, living with his half-siblings was awesome and everything overall was just amazing to him, like he was living in a fantasy world. Now the harsh reality of what it was like outside the bubble of Camp Half-Blood was hitting him like a freight train. Alex could see the look on his face and rolled her eyes. "Quit pouting about how your life has taken a giant turn. You're lucky! You're on a quest, something most demigods don't get to experience in their lifetime. You can't seriously be pondering how bad your luck is right now."

Jon grunted unhappily and looked up disbelievingly. "Isn't it a good thing most demigods don't get the chance to go out and die in the real world?"

Knowing her standard response to such cynical statements, Jon braced himself as Alex's fist slammed into his shoulder. He massaged it gently and glared at his half-sister, who smiled innocently and apparently had no second thoughts about bruising him. "So what else is going on in the mind of Jon?"

Jon put his head in his hands and sighed. "My uselessness on this quest. So far what have I done?"

He heard Alex snort. "What have you done? You underestimate the capabilities of a distraction in a live fight." She paused for a moment and realized what she just said. "Gods, I sound like an Athena kid, but you get the idea. You also saved Samantha on that bus, although no one knows how."

Jon could hear her attempting to pry as her voice changed but shook his head. "I'll explain to you eventually, it's something even I don't understand myself."

Grayson then entered the train car from the far end and started walking down the aisle. Alejandra nodded before she turned, waved, then turned back to Jon and gave him a knowing look like "don't you dare do anything," before she got up and headed down the train. Jon watched her retreating back as she moved down the train to where Samantha and Marcus were and joined them in their discussion before Grayson fully entered his field of vision and sat down across from him. An awkward silence occurred, and they both looked at each other for a few moments before she glanced down and asked, "are you ok?"

Jon was taken aback for a moment. Grayson was almost silent save for the various blunt comments she would make on occasion, the fact that she had just attempted to start a conversation with him baffled him. Grayson raised an eyebrow at him given the delay of his response and he sputtered out a quick "sort of," in response.

Grayson looked down and shook a little, and it took Jon a moment to realize that she was trying not to laugh but failing miserably. Grayson Wilson was _laughing_. Now Jon wasn't sure if he was more rattled by this side of Grayson he had never seen before or by the thoughts that had been going through his head before she sat down. Now that she had settled down and Jon had recovered a bit from his shock, he noticed her fingering a set of dogtags around her throat. He raised his eyebrows, "what are the dogtags for?"

Grayson seemed to zone out for a moment, long enough for Jon to accidentally knock her foot as he fumbled with his penknife that he had been twirling around his fingers, jarring her from her trip to another world. Her eyes came back into focus and then her demeanor changed, suddenly a little more serious. "Tell me about the weird ability that you have."

Jon hesitated, noting her avoidance of the subject before he continued his train of thought. The ability had never come up before, and only those on the quest new about it but only he knew to the extent of what it could do. He looked down. "It's basically I have the ability to give off bursts of light from my body. I don't know how it works, or how to control it but it just happens…"

He trailed off, noticing Grayson staring intently at him with an eyebrow raised and it caused him to stumble again. "What?"

Grayson smirked a bit and then shook her head. "I've never heard about an ability like yours in history, but being the son of Apollo does that mean you were born with something related to the Sun inside of you? Apollo is the god of the Sun after all."

Jon saw Alex turn around in her seat and stare back to where he was with wide eyes as his own mouth dropped open. He had never thought of it that way. Leaning back against the cushioning of his seat, Jon thought about everything he knew about his ability. He had managed to hide it for some time, learning about it just after he came to camp when he went on a walk in the forest and encountered a monster. It had scared him, and had never really reappeared again until this quest. Now it posed a threat to both the monsters and his questmates. "I…I never thought about that before."

His face must've been pretty good because Grayson just burst out laughing, attracting the attention of the others down the length of the car. Jon blushed and settled a little further against the back of the seat, stretching his mouth in a yawn. Grayson noticed and shook her head, a smile still on her face that Jon still had trouble acknowledging existed. "Get some rest, there's still time before we get to Dallas."

Admittedly, Jon was not tired at all, but the look that Grayson was giving him meant she wasn't going to take no as an answer. He sighed, wondering what other parts of Grayson he had never seen before as he closed his eyes, thinking that he wouldn't fall asleep at all, but he was wrong as he slipped into darkness.

Unfortunately, sleep produces dreams. Immediately after falling asleep Jon found himself in a museum. He hated museums. Full of stationary exhibits and small text, it was a demigod's nightmare with ADHD and dyslexia. But this time something had his attention, and certainly kept it. The Titan seated on a throne that seemed to be a replica of the statue of Zeus in Olympia, but with Zeus blasted out of the seat. The Titan was enormous, as all the Titans seemed to be. Dress in blood-red battle armour, he reminded Jon of the Ares cabin, although the Titan's face was much colder and crueler looking. He seemed almost gleeful of the destruction that he would be causing as his red eyes roamed around the room. Finally the eyes of the Titan settled on to where Jon was standing. He desperately tried to move out of his gaze but he was rooted on the spot as the Titan stared him down from the throne. "Ah, a guest."

The Titan rose from his throne. He was shorter than Koios had been, about 7 feet tall but no less intimidating as he walked down the steps, the edges of the stone steps crumbling beneath his huge armoured boots. "Welcome son of the Sun. Look around. Here in this museum lies hundreds of artifacts of our time. Of my time. Here is where you and your friends will meet your destruction, surrounded by the weapons that, when soaked in your blood, will be what we use to destroy the gods."

Jon opened his mouth to ask why exactly any of the questing demigods would come to this place, but then realized he couldn't make a sound. The Titan whoever, seemed to know exactly what he was thinking and gave another maniacal grin. He then swept his hand, releasing a strong breeze through the room that caused Jon to take a step back as he was shoved by the wind. The force of the breeze also pushed apart a set of curtains that had been covering a small alcove to the side of the throne, and what Jon saw behind it squeezed an icy fist around his heart.

Locked inside a cage was Leah Grady, the daughter of Hades that had rescued him over a year ago the night his life changed. She looked absolutely terrible. Her arms were bound behind her and openings had been slashed into her leather clothes, revealing cuts and bruises beneath on her pale skin. Her booted ankles were also chained to the bars of the cage and her head was down, her dark hair covering her face but Jon also noticed it was cut ragged in a few spots. Then the Titan bore down on him, obscuring his view of Leah and forcing Jon to look directly into the red eyes of the Titan. "My guest has made a rather wonderful…guinea pig. I've enjoyed myself learning how far she can go, testing all sorts of things on her. Did you know it only took 2 days before she stopped making noise?"

Jon heard a roaring in his ears and clenched his fists, but was unable to move towards the Titan. He could only look at the Titan and clench his jaw. The Titan continued, "I await you and your quest members son of the Sun. The plan was to get rid of that annoying daughter of Ares, but now that we have learned something about you, why don't you deliver yourself as well? I'm sure your friend over here would love the company."

The Titan came even closer, which Jon didn't think was possible until the red eyes, which Jon now noticed seemed to have a clock moving on each pupil, filled almost his entire view. "I look forward to meeting you. And you will deliver yourself into my hands before tomorrow morning. Take a look around you. Learn where this is. I will be waiting."

Jon's world seemed to spin around him as the Titan finished talking until he was at the front of the exhibit, the Titan ascending the steps back to his throne several meters away now. Above him on a banner was emblazoned 'Shrine to Greece Exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art.' He felt like an icy hand had just been plunged down his back. Their train was on the way to Dallas right now, and they had to make this stop to go find Leah. As the dream faded to black around him, Jon could hear the maniacal laughter of the Titan and a piercing scream from Leah that sent jolts through his body.

Jon jerked awake to find the seat in front of him empty and the sky outside the window of the train dark with clouds. He made an attempt to replay the dream in his mind and draw out anything he felt that was important. He couldn't remember much about the room, but he could remember the Titan, Leah's situation and the location. He moved to sit up to go find Marcus when he felt a weight on his side and something tickle his bare arm. Turning, he finally registered Grayson fully passed out at his side, leaning against his body. For a moment, he could do nothing but stare at her sleeping form, noticing the rise and fall of her chest and how she blew a little bit of hair away from her face with each breath. Then he realized what was actually happening and jumped a bit away, causing her to stir as he fully rose from his seat. "W-what's going on?" Grayson asked quietly and rather drowsily.

Jon clenched his teeth. "A problem we have to deal with, come on."

Grayson was almost instantly alert. "Monsters?"

For once, Jon almost wished it were monsters. Maybe then the life of a friend wouldn't be at risk and it would only be him. Instead, Leah's survival rested on what he did when he reached the museum. Wonderful. He shook his head as he started down the train. Just absolutely freaking great. Samantha was the one facing him as he headed for the others and she must have noticed something was up because she immediately rose, eyebrows raised. "What's going on?" She asked sharply. Jon resisted to the urge to grit his teeth. He knew she was by far the most experienced of them all, but Marcus was leading the quest, not her. Instead he turned to Marcus and spoke directly to him. "We need to make a stop here, the Dallas Museum of Art."

Samantha, who showed no sign of being annoyed with Jon ignoring her, and Marcus, who just seemed confused, both asked at the same time, "why?"

Jon took a moment to calm himself before starting. "I had a dream."

Immediately a groan was heard from Alex but he continued to describe his dream. "It was a room of Greek artifacts, and there was a Titan." Everyone grimaced at the mention of any Titan. "I've never heard of this one before, full red armour, red eyes and this grin that just seemed to make him insane. He was smaller than some of the others but had this tension around him that just made me want to snap and break something. And then…"

Jon's voice broke for a moment as he thought of the state Leah was in. "Leah…she's been captured. She was there, bound, caged for several days. She dies tomorrow if we don't show up. Please Marcus, I know it's most likely a trap but please we can't just let her die."

All eyes turned to Marcus, who sat quietly processing the information. He glanced at Samantha briefly before looking back at Jon. "Get in touch with camp. If she isn't there and is reported missing we go in. Where is she supposedly again?"

Jon looked out the window as the train pulled into the station, looking at the advertisements on the wall and froze as he saw one. "The Dallas Museum of Art."

Everyone followed his gaze to the sign outside the window advertising the 'Shrine to Greece' exhibition. "Well." Samantha broke the momentarily silence as the train stopped. "Who's up for a museum trip?"

 **A/N: I'm back everyone! Sorry for the nearly two month long wait, but I'm back with some good news. Following Christmas I'll be on co-op, so I have a lot more time to put into this story. Yay! I know some of you are probably upset about the really slow level of updates, and I'm sorry, but from the New Year until about May I hope to put out a chapter every one or two weeks. Thanks again so much for being patient and I hope you look forward to the story as much as I do. Unfortunately there will not likely be another update until the New Year because I start exams within 2 weeks, but if I have the time I'll do my best. Thanks again!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 **A/N: Happy holidays and Happy New Year everyone! I'm back with another chapter with another one on the way, I apologize if my writing style seems to fluctuate a bit. I think the mood I'm in when I write decides exactly what gets written and how the sentences are structured so this may look a bit different. Either way enjoy the longest chapter yet!**

 **Samantha POV:**

Samantha couldn't help but be slightly surprised about recent events, despite a reputation for being difficult to surprise. First there was the mysterious bursts of light that Jon could somehow pull off, now they learn that Leah Grady had been kidnapped, which Samantha had to admit she was _very_ surprised about. Leah was rather powerful, a bit strange but that was a given in children of Hades. So obviously the next step was to find the nearest Wal-Mart and buy a spray bottle. It was pretty cheap, and they filled it with water from a water fountain in a park. For late afternoon, the park was nearly deserted, which didn't matter to Samantha. It actually was much better for them as Marcus began squirting into the air while Grayson dug around her bag for a drachma. As sun pierced the mist from the spray bottle and formed a rainbow, Grayson tossed her drachma through it and said, "O Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering."

As the mist began to shimmer she continued, "Show me Camp Half-Blood."

The mist cleared to show the front porch of the Big House, and the back of Martin James' head. The rest of the camp seemed pretty quiet, which was unusual since most of the cabins had activities at this time. "Yo! Martin!" Marcus called, causing the son of Tyche to turn his head.

Martin's face broke into a grin and he stood, rolling a dice with his fingers as he approached the Iris message. "How've you guys been doing? Not too bad apparently since I don't see too many injuries."

Alejandra grimaced. "They're all buried under clothing, trust me there's been injuries."

Martin gave a sly grin and shrugged. "Guess I didn't give enough luck to you guys to avoid injuries? Oh well. Anyways, what's up? You guys must be calling about something."

The entire questing group glanced at each other. Silent arguments seemed to be happening between them before Alejandra seemed to beat Jon, who turned and asked reluctantly, "Is Leah around?"

Martin's face immediately lost its cheer as he glanced back towards the rest of the camp, taking a moment before he turned back to respond. "No she isn't."

Samantha glanced at Jon, who looked like he'd been sucker punched. She turned back towards the Iris message as Marcus frantically pumped out more mist from the spray bottle. "If she isn't there then where is she?"

Martin looked down and took a deep breath before responding. "She disappeared about three days ago on a rescue mission in Oklahoma. The Pegasus she rode out returned yesterday with injuries. He's being treated right now, but no one has heard anything from Leah since. We can't get in contact with her by Iris message either."

Grayson spoke up from behind everyone. "What's the reaction like in the camp?"

Martin paled a bit. "A rumour began that she used the rescue mission as a ruse to go join the forces of the Titans. There have been a couple fights over the topic but it's been pretty quiet otherwise. Rather sensitive topic now, especially around the Hades cabin. Anyway how's the quest been going?"

Marcus's squirt bottle began spitting a bit as he squeezed and he caught Samantha's eye to shake his head. They were out of water and didn't have much time. Samantha turned towards the Iris message again, "We already ran into a Titan. And from the sounds of it, we'll be running into another one getting to Leah. Just let Chiron know it's been rough, but we know where Leah is and we'll be trying to get to her."

Martin opened his mouth to answer but before he could answer they heard the clopping of hooves as Chiron trotted into view. "You wanted to tell me something?" He asked.

They all straightened a bit and Jon nodded. "We know where Leah is, sir. We'll be going to go rescue her."

Chiron looked grave but nodded as the Iris message began to fade. "Good luck then children. Don't linger too much over the meaning of the prophecy, they often have double meanings and don't reveal themselves until later on. And Samantha child, don't think about…"

He trailed off as the mist finally disappeared and evapourated into the air of the park. A moment of silence passed before all eyes looked towards Samantha, who was still staring where the Iris message was, thoughts racing through her head. How did Chiron know what she had been thinking about? Perhaps being one of the senior campers meant Chiron knew far more about her and her tendencies than she thought. She glanced at Marcus, who gave a tight shake of his head before she took a deep breath. "Let's get to the museum. We have a daughter of Hades to save."

As they gathered up their stuff, Marcus sent a look her which basically said _you're not going to listen are you_. She glared back _shut up Brooke_ and turned away. Her mind was whirling as the one line of the prophecy ran through her head, _anger will face unleashed war's wrath._ It was her, it had to be but the line made no sense. Anger wasn't a simple entity she could chop away at with her swords when it made her mad. She glanced a Marcus beside her as they walked, who she could tell was worried but he didn't glance at her so she looked ahead at the signs along the street advertising the new Shrine to Greece exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. _More like Shrine to Titans_.

Soon they stood in front of the Dallas Museum of Art, which was a low grey building that honestly didn't seem like an art museum to her. She glanced up at the clouds rolling in overhead and growled a bit to herself. "Let's get inside and find Leah. Be careful though."

It was early evening, the museum was fairly empty except for the occasional security guard. Glancing the beefy men made Samantha uneasy but she shrugged it off and kept moving. They quickly checked the time, seeing that the museum was closing in a few minutes and consulted a map, locating the exhibit at the far back end of the museum. They moved through the back halls, Samantha and Grayson both mapping out possible exit routes and avenues of approach. The exhibit was located in a long hall that stretched into the back of the museum, leaving it rather isolated except for the entrance to the hall. Before Samanatha knew it they were at the entrance. Grayson looked almost panicked, apparently not having fully thought out her plan N yet. _Athena children_ , she thought.

Looking up at the banner stretched across the opening, she felt a shiver up her spine. It looked like a string held across a gaping maw of darkness, ready to swallow them whole. Nodding to the others, she squeezed her rings to transform them into her pair of swords as the others drew their weapons. Jon's penknife finally came up in a weapon form as a bow, but they all looked nervous as they looked into the shadows of the exhibit. Moving forward slowly, Samantha couldn't help but notice the huge number of Greek artifacts that were contained in the exhibit before shaking her head. _Distractions, focus on what lies ahead_. Ahead of them in the darkness they could see the base of the throne, and the Titan could not be seen in the shadows. They crept forward, the light of their celestial bronze lighting the shadows for a distance around them until they reached an opening in the exhibit in front of the throne. Samantha glanced around uneasily. There was no way they should have made it this far without causing something. Marcus voiced her thoughts, "something should have happened by now."

Right as the words left his mouth, Jon tripped and hit a stand hard, causing the pot on top to rattle and fall to the ground with a tremendous crash. Everyone froze, staring at Jon, then at the smashed pot. Behind them, they heard another crash and turned to find the Titan in the doorway, with two Laistrygonian giants behind him pulling a gate closed at the entrance to the exhibit. Everyone exchanged nervous glances as the Titan took a couple steps forward, his red eyes glowing in the darkness and Samantha could distinctly hear Grayson complaining, "you had to say something."

They backed up a couple steps before the Titan stopped and clapped his hands. The lights came on in the room, everyone shielding their eyes momentarily and bracing for an attack that didn't come. Samantha hesitated, searching the three enemies before noticing where the eyes of the giants were looking with smirks on their faces. She glanced up, noticing the stand containing a number of spears pointed down and yelled, "scatter!"

Everyone glanced up and dove out of the way as the stand came crashing down where the group previously was standing. All of the demigods ended up in different sections of the room and scrambling to recover as the Titan strode into the center of the room. "Welcome demigods!" His voice boomed around the cavernous room, rattling the glass cases along the walls.

The Titan's eyes seemed to glow a bit brighter, the red making Samantha uneasy as he turned towards her. His eyes seemed to drill into her body and freeze her in place. "Now let us give you a proper welcome."

Her stomach transformed into a freezer for a moment, causing her to glance around wildly as the suits of Greek armour suddenly came alive. Jon and Alejandra had both been behind a set of suits, which suddenly turned around and pinned them down. Both were struggling under the weight until one on top held a sword to Alejandra's throat and they both stopped, wide eyed underneath the pile of celestial bronze. _Eidolons_. Samantha thought as her eyes widened and she backed up onto the steps of the throne. From Jon's description, Leah would be in a cage somewhere behind her but there were more pressing problems being laid out in front of her.

Grayson had somehow ended up to the left of the Titan, where the Laistrygonians had closed in and corned her. She had both her knives out and was slashing at one and trying to dodge the other before another giant entered by wrenching open the emergency exit door behind her. This giant shouldered his way through the door, grabbed her and tossed her into the wall. She hit the wall with a sickening thud and slid to the ground as the giants grunted with satisfaction. Several of them reached up to grab pipes that ran along the ceiling and bent them downwards, spraying water through the air as they were crossed in front of Grayson, creating a makeshift cell for her unconscious form.

Marcus, of all people, had dove towards the Titan. Samantha wanted to scream in frustration as she watched Marcus look up and raise his weapon to clash against the sword the Titan had drawn. It had a beauty to it that Samantha could appreciate, a black blade with a dark red scattered across it. She absently wondered if it was blood when the blades met and it jerked her back to her senses. She leaped down the first two steps as the swords clashed again, but before she moved very far the Titan shouted, blowing Marcus backwards into a support pillar. Marcus slammed into the pillar, cracking it in multiple places before sliding down, his weapon clattering at Samantha's feet after the shockwave. As Marcus crumpled to the ground, the Titan rose over him, planting a foot on Marcus's back. "So much for that."

The Titan raised his arms. "Now that the audience is properly seated, allow me to introduce myself, daughter of war. I am Menoetius! I am the Titan of violent anger and human mortality!"

From somewhere behind the set of bars that trapped Grayson, everyone faintly heard a dazed voice, "also the idiot titan of rash decisions."

Samantha bit her lip trying not to laugh as the Titan's face turned red. "Everything that you puny humans do must have some representation. Just happened to be me."

Samantha ran her mind through past stories she had been told in her years at Camp Half-Blood. "Didn't Zeus kill you because of your recklessness?"

Menoetius's face wavered for a moment, and what seemed to be a large crater appeared in the center of his armour, edges blackened and broken as he glanced down. "Please do not mention that. It was a rather rash decision if I do say so myself, but it will not happen again!"

The hole in his armour wavered and disappeared again as Samantha took in the situation. There weren't many options left as the monsters began to close in on either side of her. Holding her blades up she thought of what she knew. Menoetius was never mentioned in myths, was the Titan of violent anger, human mortality and rash decisions, was killed once by Zeus and that was about all she had on this guy. Then it hit her. Glancing up, she knew from experience in the Ares cabin that rash decisions came from violent anger and there was a nasty cycle involved there. A small smile played across her lips. Living in Ares meant she knew how to piss someone off, although it may be a bit harder here she had to try and see what happened. "You know what Menoetius? Maybe I won't mention it since if Zeus killed you so easily you're not even worth my time."

She held one of her swords with two fingers, dangling it down. "Maybe I should just turn and leave. None of you are worthy of fighting me."

She half turned towards the throne and saw Menoetius's mouth drop open out of the corner of her eye. He took a moment to regain his composure. "You dare turn your back on me you puny demigod? I will crush you beneath my feet like I will do to this pitiful one beneath me! Turn and face me or he dies!"

Gritting her teeth, she mentally scolded herself for momentarily forgetting Marcus was underneath him and reluctantly turned towards him. Menoetius face morphed into an ugly grin, "good, I can feel your anger now daughter of war. Do not be afraid to use it! I am the Titan of violent anger and I know you have plenty within you, just waiting to be used."

Samantha shook her head. "You are mistaken, I am not like my siblings or my father. I will not give in to something you control."

Menoetius stood a little straighter and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? A child of Ares who refuses to use anger? You surprise me Samantha Tamaguchi, but no matter, I will reveal your true self, the one that has been hidden away within you all these years."

Now it was Samantha's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Hidden away inside me? There is nothing there! I would know by now, something would have happened. You aren't getting anything out of me!"

She felt her voice rising and took a deep breath to calm herself. "I will not give in."

The Titan simply smiled and spread his arms. She grit her teeth, becoming very frustrated at his overdramatic actions. "Perhaps you need some incentive? What if that suit of armour was to slip and accidentally cut your friends throat? Could you save her?"

Samantha looked over to Jon and Alex as they lay trapped beneath the possessed suit of armour. Alex looked absolutely outraged, her eyes blazing but she couldn't do anything with a dagger held against her throat while Jon just seemed resigned, slumped underneath but watching the scene wit wide eyes. Samantha was surprised to feel a growl come from her throat as she looked at the friends she was responsible for. "What do you want?"

Her question was shot at the titan in a tight tone, but the Titan simply smiled. "You will serve me as my lieutenant as we go to war against the gods. Ares would dare not strike down his own daughter in the midst of the battle."

Samantha's blood turned to ice in her veins. This was bad. Very bad. She was not about to become a pawn of the titans and destroy everything that existed in her life with her own hands. "And if I refuse?"

Menoetius fingered an arrow on a display beside him. "Then your friends die. It's real simple. I don't care for any of them, daughter of war, I only care about your usefulness to me. You're one of the strongest demigods at Camp Half-Blood, and I wish to have you on my side. And if not well, things like this will happen."

Before Samantha could blink, he flicked his wrist and the arrow buried itself in the ground inches to the left of Marcus's head. She could see Marcus's eyes widen as the stone cracked. Now she could feel the hot ball of fury building in her chest, her knuckles turning white as they gripped each of her swords. "Don't you dare…" She growled.

Menoetius looked down at Marcus, up at Samantha, and smiled for a moment. "Oh? You do have a weak link after all? You disappoint me daughter of war, but no matter. Your lack of cooperation will be punished."

As he reached for another arrow, she burst out, "wait! Stop!"

Her hands shook as she transformed her swords back into rings and she slowly moved down the stairs with her hands raised. Marcus's eyes widened again and he tried to shake his head but the Titan simply pressed down with his foot and kept Marcus against the ground. She trembled as she approached until was just in front of the Titan. "Kneel." He commanded, his grin one of triumph.

Samantha bit her lip as she knelt down on the ground before meeting Marcus's eye. They'd trained for so long she didn't need to say anything for him to understand. Counting down silently in her head, Marcus pushed himself as far as he could off the floor while Samantha rose with her blades drawn again. She sliced twice across the Titan's chest before flipping backwards in a kick that caught the Titan under the chin, Off balance from Marcus underneath him and unfocused, Samantha's swords cut twin gashes in the chest of Menoetius's armour while the kick sent him flailing backwards. Turning back around, the Titan's eyes seemed to be on fire, with the little clocks in his eyes turning faster. "Seems like there was some fight left in you. Most unfortunate, I was looking forward to making you mine. Now you shall pay!"

Before Samantha could say some clever retort the Titan bellowed, which unleashed another shock wave that Samantha was really getting sick and tired of as she flew through the air and bounced against the ground, rolling to a stop at the base of the steps to the throne. Marcus had also been thrown backwards away from her but she struggled to her feet as Menoetius charged her and their blades clashed. Samantha leaned backwards under the pressue of the Titan as his face pushed a little forwards into hers. "Too bad, your boyfriend there put up a half-decent fight."

Samantha felt her face flush at his words but she grit her teeth and pushed back, rolling out of the way to dodge another slash from the Titan. She met his next strike with one of her swords and slashed at his knees with her other, her blade clanging off his armour and he shoved her backwards again. Glancing to the side, she used the flat of her sword to shove a medium-sized pot at Menoetius, who snarled and slashed it out of the air. But the dust cloud that burst from the slice was enough to obscure his view as Mind (her smaller sword) slashed through the air and a cry was heard from the Titan, who stumbled backwards. Breathing heavily, Menoetius slowly stood, a cut across his face very clear as golden ichor, the blood of immortals, began to drip down his face. His eyes burned, "you will pay for that daughter of war, and not only you."

Menoetius put a hand on the stand beside him to push himself back up unsteadily before a shove tipped the stand over between him and Samantha. Her eyes widened as she saw what had been on the stand: a pair of arrows, which he now gripped in his hand. She saw his eyes blaze and screamed, "no don't!"

The words had just left her mouth before the arrows darted across the room and buried themselves in Marcus's arm and leg. He cried out and went down, panting as he gingerly fingered the shaft of the arrow in his right arm. Behind him, one of the Laistrygonians loomed up. Menoetius turned back to Samantha, "your friends will pay for your mistakes. Will you continue to resist or will you bow to me?"

Samantha felt something snap in her chest, feeling all of her anger and rage boil up over the edge like a volcano as her vision turned red. Her expression must have been very different, and fierce because Menoetius looked very surprised, backing up for a moment before he put both hands back on his weapon and held it in front of him as Samantha approached slowly. "You will not touch my friends again."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marcus pull on one of the arrows and yell in pain. Then with a scream, she threw her arms out and the room exploded in a shower of glass.

 **A/N – I think the part I'm unhappiest about in this chapter was Samantha trying to piss off Meneotius, trash-talking is really something I've never done and I'm not very good at it so bear with me. Another honest point I need to make, thinking about how I would make characters change and focus on them, it took me a moment to remember that the title has Samantha in it, not Marcus. Too much thought went into the future of Marcus and some of the other characters, but maybe there's no such thing as too much. Until next time :), also updates are going to become more frequent!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 **A/N: Really late I'm sorry, hopefully length makes up for the time I was away, explanation at the end. Enjoy the mixed POVs!**

 **Samantha POV**

From that day on, Samantha would never forget how good it felt to release so much pressure from within her body. The power of her fury that coursed through her body felt wonderful, and at the moment of her scream she felt every weapon in the room respond to her. Every sword, axe, dagger, spear and bow in the room burst out of their case or broke free of their display stand and swiveled towards Meneoteius and the monsters accompanying him. It felt wonderful, an almost pulsing feeling that shot through her body and made her feel unstoppable. She could almost feel the weapons on her fingertips as she brought her head back to normal level after she had thrown it back during the scream. Her grin must have been terrifying because the Laistrygonians took a step back and even Meneoteius looked uneasy. "So this is what power feels like." She mused to herself. "It feels good."

One of the giants panicked and turned to run, but with a flick of her finger a spear shot through the air from behind her and shish-kebobed the giant against the wall. That giant immediately disappeared in a shower of gold dust before the rest were also impaled and disintegrated. Samantha kept her humourless smile as she turned and advanced towards Menoetius. He backed up a step, fear showing momentarily in his eyes before he snapped his fingers. The creaking of armour from her left whipped Samantha's head around, eyes widening as the possessed suit of armour raised its hand with the dagger in it. "No!" She screamed as she thrust out a hand, the same time Jon surged upwards and shoved the suit of armour as hard as he could. Unfortunately, being a suit of armour it was extremely heavy and wasn't pushed very far, but it was far enough for a pair of swords to strike it and cleave it in half, causing it to clatter to the ground in two pieces. Jon let out a yelp as one of the swords grazed him on its pass, but twisted and hit the ground hard beside his half-sister.

Satisfied that they were safe from any immediate threat, she half-turned only to duck as Menoetius thrust his sword towards her chest. Rolling aside she swung her swords around to meet his. They grappled for a bit, shoving back and forth until the Titan kicked out and she was forced to disengage her swords and jump back. Samantha hissed quietly as a floating knife cut into her shoulder, rolling it a bit before she mentally smacked herself in the head. _Oh yeah, the weapons_.

Unfortunately Menoetius was in no mood to give her time to concentrate on using said weapons as he charged towards her again, their swords meeting again for a moment. Samantha knew she couldn't focus on controlling the floating weapons and fighting Menoetius, so she had to wait for an opening when they weren't fighting. She shoved his sword up and rolled underneath his guard, slashing with one of her blades as she came out on his other side. He leaned sideways and she barely grazed the side of his armour, gritting her teeth as she turned to face him again. He feinted towards her head and then slashed down towards her boots, which she barely redirected with the tip of her left sword before she slashed across his breastplate.

Menoetius stumbled backwards from the blow but retaliated with a slash that took all of Samantha's strength to block. Her arms trembled for a moment under the toll before she was thrust backwards, her back hitting a pillar a few steps behind her and then diving aside as the Titan's sword sliced through the pillar, bringing it crashing to the ground. He swung back around, cleaving down and Samantha jumped straight up as his sword drove itself into the ground. Taking advantage of his momentary disarmament as his sword was stuck, she slashed forwards, cutting into the armour of his arms on either side. Letting out a yell, he batted her swords aside with one hand and with the other pulled his sword out of the ground. He swung it in a flat arc with one hand, which Samantha rolled under and sprang back to her feet. Her blades out to the side to prepare for the follow up attack, instead she was completely unprepared as the Titan's sword was held behind him and instead his fist collided with her face.

His blow caught her across the face above the eye, sending her flying backwards and rolling across the ground. She could feel the cut above her eye and blinked blood out of her vision to see Menoetius approach Marcus, who was still on the ground eyes have shut in pain from the arrows that had impaled him earlier. He stood over him, expression one of gloating as she slowly and painfully pulled herself to her feet. "The first blood of the new war!"

He raised his sword above his head to bring it down into Marcus. Samantha knew she was too far away to stop it, but panic overwhelmed her for a moment and she could only open her mouth and scream. Her scream shook the room as every floating sword and spear shot towards Menoetius in a flurry of emotion that seemed to originate from somewhere that Samantha was not sure about. All the worry, stress from this quest, concern for her teammates, anger at the Titans, it all just flowed out of her along with something she wasn't sure of as Menoetius seemed to bring his sword down in slow motion.

It never reached Marcus, who had thrown his hands up in a futile attempt to stop the sword as it came down towards his chest. His eyes had been squeezed shut, but he opened one eye carefully to see why he hadn't been impaled by the sword and immediately widened his eyes at what he saw.

The Titan now crudely resembled a porcupine with the sheer number of weapons sticking out of his body. Swords and spears were driven right through him and his armour, creating large holes from which cracks began to spread. Golden Ichor, the blood of immortals, also began to leak out of all the holes as his hands trembled and the sword clattered to the ground beside Marcus. Menoetius sneered as his body began to shake. "It has only just begun girl. My brethren rise, and this time Olympus will meet its end!"

With that he began to dissolve until only the empty shell of his armour left. That also began to transform until it was a wisp of red smoke that lazily floated away until it disappeared, leaving behind a floating cluster of weapons.

Samantha finally let everything go, the weapons crashing and clattering to the floor around her as she swayed unsteadily on her feet, her vision swimming. Feeling blackness ebbing away at the corners of her vision she sank to her knees before tipping over, barely aware of Marcus calling her name and a hand reaching out to her before blackness claimed her.

 **Marcus**

Marcus barely managed to lunge forward to get his hand underneath Samantha's head as she tipped over, preventing another head-bashing injury that none of them could afford to sustain right now. He managed to pull himself upright while keeping his hand underneath her head and cradled it, checking for other injuries but it seemed to only be bruising and the cut she suffered above her left eye.

Jon meanwhile had limped up the steps to the throne and thrown aside the dark curtains that had obscured their view before, revealing the small cage that held the daughter of Hades captive. Marcus's mouth dropped open

From the expression on Jon's face, it was also far worse than what he saw in his dream. Her clothes had slashes through then in innumerable places and she simply hung in her chains within the cage. Jon pulled his penknife out and cut through the lock and the chains holding Leah inside before beginning to gently shuffling her out of the cage. Grayson bit her lip for a moment before she stumbled over to help as they slowly shuffled her out of the cage and onto the steps. They slowly helped her out but she didn't seem to be moving under her own power and they carefully carried her a few feet from the cage and set her down on the steps leading up to the throne. Leah had yet to open her eyes, but Marcus let his eyes wander over her. Deep gashes were cut through her skin, leaking blood and clear fluid through the rips in her clothes. Her face was devoid of emotion and she appeared unconscious, but as Alex approached her with her medical supplies Marcus returned his attention to the unconscious Samantha. Her face no longer contained any of the rage he had seen from her only a few minutes ago. Instead it was almost peaceful, reminding him of when he first came to camp.

At the time, she was this small Asian girl with two beads on her necklace and a chip in her shoulder because of her father and cabinmates showing him around his new home. He'd thought she was fairly innocent and very out of place, since he didn't understand how someone like her was a child of Ares the war god.

Then she broke the nose of one of her half-brothers and all doubts immediately vanished.

From what he heard after the incident, it had been one of her newly claimed brothers trying to climb the ladder within the cabin and figured she made a good target. He'd learned rather quickly what the rest of the cabin already knew: don't mess with Sam. When the guy had approached, eyes like a pitbull and a very aggressive stance, Marcus had moved to put himself in front of Samantha but she had shoved him aside. "I can handle him on my own Brooke stay out of it."

It was over quick, the guy basically charged her and took her fist straight between the eyes and went down with her on top. From that point on, Marcus swore to never underestimate her ever again, she may not always seem intimidating but she could probably take down anyone in the entire camp. They became the best of friends from then on, sharing many memories, promises and formed one of the strongest friendships within the entire camp, but Marcus never forgot how it started.

Now looking down at the peacefulness of her face besides the blood, he was reminded of the way she had seemed before she had taken down her half-brother in front of him. It was almost like looking at a puppy sleep, very innocent and very cute. Meanwhile Jon waved his hand in front of Leah's face but her eyes just didn't seem to focus on anything. "Leah? Leah can you hear me? Leah? Please respond!"

Jon's voice became increasingly desperate but she still failed to show any sign of hearing or seeing anything and hadn't made a sound since she was removed from her cage. She sat supported on the steps staring into nothingness as Jon glanced helplessly at Marcus. "I don't know what's wrong." He said in an almost strangled voice.

Alex finally finished bandaging up Leah and handed a flask of nectar to Jon before she approached Marcus. Marcus began to stand up to give Alex space but she shook her head. "You stay right where you are, you're more injured than she is right now."

Marcus started to protest but the glare Alex gave him basically said _shut up and let me do my job, I'm not in the mood._ While it wasn't as terrifying as Sam's glare, Marcus just nodded and stayed on the ground to let Alex patch him up. "Besides," She teased quietly. "If Sam found out that I patched her up before you with those injuries she would kill me."

Alex handed him a square of ambrosia to eat as she bandaged his leg. He popped it into his mouth, tasting his mom's moist and filling carrot cake, and the pain in his body faded a bit. As Alex moved to bandaging his shoulder Marcus turned his attention towards Leah, who was still being supported by a concerned Jon and Grayson. She was still fully unresponsive and Marcus was really beginning to worry. What were they going to do with her? She wasn't seemingly able to move in this state, much less fight. He then mentally banged his head against the wall. _You're making her sound like a deadweight_. He scolded himself. Normally Leah was anything but. Strong, confident and independent with an attitude and some nasty capabilities with any weapon, but this was only a fragment of the Leah that he knew. He flexed his shoulder as Alex finished bandaging it and shrugged off the thought. It was something they would deal with in the morning after they recollected everything. "Thanks a lot."

Alex nodded and quickly bandaged Samantha's facial cut before she stood up to go back to figure out what was wrong with Leah. Now they had to figure out what their next steps were. As good as the mist was he knew it wouldn't hide the fact that there were six kids in a museum room after hours where it looked like a bomb had gone off to the mortal police. He vocalized his thoughts and everyone prepared to start moving despite Alex's scolding that they weren't able to do much in terms of motion with their injuries. "You'll all tear yourselves apart with the injuries you just sustained if you start moving." She complained, but eventually relented because they were in no state to deal with any form of authorities.

Marcus gently laid Samantha's head back down on the ground. He slowly swung his legs away from her body and shakily forced himself to his feet. Once standing, he swayed for a moment before he shook his head to clear it and bent back down, wincing from pain shooting through his right leg, and prepared to slip his hands underneath Samantha's unconscious form. Glancing to his right, he noticed the large red and black sword that remained after the defeat of Menoetius and decided to strap it to his belt before straightening up with Samantha in his arms. It had been a long time since he had to carry her, and he forgot she was fairly light, although being injured did balance it out a bit as he stumbled towards Jon. Getting closer to them and getting Jon's attention, Marcus pointed his chin towards the emergency exit that had been forced open during the battle. "There's woods out behind the museum, we can camp out in there overnight and rest before figuring out our next move."

No one argued, although Marcus suspected that they didn't care what happened next as long as there wasn't much in terms of fighting and they got rest. Grayson took point and she was the first out the door, signaling all clear. Marcus soon followed her out the door, still carrying the unconscious Samantha and careful to not have her bang into anything. The sword at his side unbalanced him a bit but he managed to stumble outside without falling over, and more importantly without dropping Sam. Alex and Jon soon followed, half carrying a semi-conscious Leah with an arm around each of their shoulders as Alex continued to re-bandage and press cloths against her wounds.

Marcus's chest hurt as he took another look at Leah and her condition, but they had to keep moving and get her proper medical attention soon. They moved through the woods, approximately a few hundred meters before Marcus called out, "this should be fine. Just set up here and we can rest."

Lit only by the glow of the moonlight they set up a small camp with the sole tent that they had. Leah fell unconscious while Alex was tending to her wounds and they decided to transfer the two unconscious girls inside the tent to sleep. As Grayson and Alex moved Leah inside the tent, Marcus caught Jon staring after them as the flap drifted closed behind them. "Hey, you ok?"

Jon glanced down. "I'm not sure what I'm witnessing anymore, or just what happened to her. She's in a sort of comatose state where she's actually awake but not really awake."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "How about yourself?"

Jon sighed as he unraveled his sleeping bag. "Rattled to say the least. Basically, how would you feel if Samantha was tortured to the point of unresponsiveness?"

Marcus was taken a back by the bitter tone in Jon's voice. He knew for certain those two were nowhere near as close as him and Sam, but he seemed to be taking it very personally. Jon was hurt, but in more ways that one apparently. Not wanting to press it, Marcus just nodded. "Alright, just get some rest, I'll take first watch."

Jon nodded his head and lay down, shifting in his sleeping bag and turning away as Marcus stood up and headed to the tent. He raised his hand to rap on the flap as it opened and Grayson and Alex emerged. Alex raised her eyes at Marcus's raised fist. "Oh, hey!"

Marcus backed up a step then indicated the two remaining sleeping bags. "Grab those and get some sleep, I'll take first watch and wake one of you guys up for the next round, Jon doesn't seem so good and I want to let him sleep the night."

The girls nodded and moved to grab the sleeping bags before setting them up. Marcus yawned for a moment before scolding himself. _Now's not the time to get tired when you have half a night of watch ahead of you_. He moved several yards away from the camp into another small clearing, staring up at the moon as he drew the sword he had taken from the battle after Meneoteius had disappeared. It was beautiful, he had to admit, but it was very different from what he was used to. He shrugged and set it down beside him as he rested his head against the trunk of the tree behind him, wondering what was going in Samantha's mind as she lay in the tent unconscious.

 **Samantha**

Samantha dreamt she was in a harbor, a rather large on in a hot climate area. Looking to her left, she spotted a long white trapezoid out on the water. With a start, she realized she was in Pearl Harbour, the location that sparked the Pacific conflict of WWII with Japan.

"It was a good offensive. Very well planned and executed except for one thing."

Samantha turned at the sound of a grudgingly admiring voice. A man stood to her right, tall, well built dressed in the fatigues of a U.S. marine, complete with an m-16 held across his chest. As her eyes traveled up she reached his well-scarred face, red wraparound shades and oily crew cut.

Her eyes widened. "Father?"

Ares snapped his fingers and suddenly the air was filled with the screaming engines of diving planes and sound of gunfire and explosions. Samantha flinched briefly from a nearby explosion and her eyes widened as a battleship suddenly towered over her. "This was Pearl Harbour. The Japanese performed everything well, had their planning, strategy and proper execution. Unfortunately for the Japanese, their primary objective was absent from the battle.

He snapped his fingers again and the scene faded to the solemn memorial of the USS Arizona. "I warn you not to fall into the same situation. Always be wary of what you are looking for, and what could be the consequences. The aircraft carriers weren't in Pearl Harbour, the consequence for failing their objective? Japan lost the war. Remember that, on your quest failure could lead to the downfall of Olympus."

His severe expression softened to more of a smirk. "But I must congratulate you on your use of your ability. I have never seen it controlled to that extent before, and on your first try! Most impressive."

She looked down at her hands and moved her fingers. "What is this ability? It never appeared before and I've never heard of it in the history of Ares children."

Ares shrugged as he fingered a grenade on his utility belt. "It is an extremely rare ability that my children can be born with. They have the ability to change the course of a battle by taking control of the weapons, as you have found out by now. Those who have this ability much reach a decision on their own when the time comes, on how you wish to use this ability. I personally love and encourage bloodshed, but it is up to you to decide how you will impact the battlefield."

Samantha's eyes narrowed. "But the backlash of the ability takes its toll. Is it a good tactical decision to use such an ability?"

Ares shrugged. "You're the tactician, unlike your siblings. It another thing that makes you different. You're almost unique among my children because of what you represent. Instead of brute force, physical size and strength you embody the mind of strategy and fighting spirit, the elements of battle often over looked. You should know them well, your swords are named after them."

Samantha raised her hands and looked at the ring on each of her middle fingers. Mind and Intuition, the non-physical elements of battle. "Not every person becomes a soldier by just possessing strength, they need to have the mind to be able to use it and know how to react in situations where people count on them heavily." Ares smirked for a moment. "I'm not known for my brainpower when it comes to what I do, but that's what your mother gave to you."

He stared out across the water. "You'll have some difficult fights ahead Samantha. I don't find my kid's battles, but you're a fine warrior. Learn to use your emotions properly, as you saw what you become when overcome with rage and anger. Fight well."

Samantha, who had been staring out across the water as well glanced towards her father's face. She knew from stories he didn't have eyes behind the shades, but his smirk was almost comforting as her dream faded to black.

 **A/N: I'm a terrible person. I sat here at my desk before Christmas thinking to myself "wow a train I have so much time to write my stories on it" and such. Well that didn't happen as I became so drained from entering the workforce I don't do much except sleep on the train. So this chapter has been in the works since before I posted the last one but I ran into a number of blocks and wasn't sure how I was going to fit this chapter together. I'm working on ideas for the next one but honestly it may take some time despite all this time I have to think about it.**

 **Right now I really hope you guys enjoy how this story is going. I really enjoy creating it and might add some appearances from other characters in the future, but for now please read and review, let me know what you love or hate! I guess since I didn't uphold my end of the bargain I can't promise shorter wait times because it's been over a month since my last update, but I really hope I can get another chapter out within the next month. Most likely not as long as this one, but hopefully you guys will enjoy it! Until next time!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 **A/N: Sorry it took so long, hopefully another update within the next 3 weeks is what I'm aiming for right now since my workday is basically 7-7 I don't have a ton of time to be working on the story, on the bright side longest chapter to date! Enjoy!**

Marcus POV

To say Marcus was completely weirded out by recent events was an understatement. First they had to fight another Titan (he was really getting sick of those guys) and then while the entire team gets incapacitated, Sam suddenly develops the capability to control weapons with her mind and completely kick ass. The fact that her anger was unleashed because he was being hurt was not lost on him either. Not to mention whatever had happened with Jon and his sudden ability to shine light.

Oh yeah, and he got stabbed. In multiple places. That was also something weird and something he would prefer never to repeat again.

Marcus ran his finger along Menoetius's sword, which now lay on the ground next to him. It was beautiful in a harsh _I'll slice and dice you_ sort of way, but then he shook his head. Was he becoming weapon obsessed now like those twins in the Ares cabin? On the other hand, maybe he could try to use it but he dismissed that idea almost immediately. Here on a quest, he'd be pushed to the limits of his combat abilities and a new sword was not going to do him any favours whatsoever. He didn't need to be a child of Athena to know that would be a bad decision, so he shrugged and lifted his hand off of it. Leaning back against the tree, he tried to sort out his thoughts on what they were going to do in the morning and ignore the lingering pain in his body from his recent wounds.

"Beautiful night isn't it?"

If Marcus was standing, he would've jumped several feet in the air, but instead he half-fell over and looked up to his right with wide eyes.

A slim, fit man in running shorts and a Dallas Marathon t-shirt stood beside him. He had salt and pepper hair and a sly smile. Normally Marcus would've yelled or drawn a weapon, but then he fully saw the man's face, revealing an expression that Marcus new far too well. He saw it on the face of his half-siblings everyday at camp. "May I sit?"

Marcus gaped but nodded as the man sat down beside him. "Dad?"

Hermes turned, a mischievous glint in his eye and smiled warmly. "Glad you recognized me so quickly Marcus, most demigods don't."

Marcus wasn't sure how to respond. His mouth opened and closed twice before his shook his head to clear it. "Why are you here? Did you have to bring something for me?"

Hermes gave a frustrated sigh and shook his head. "Can no one ever entertain the notion that I am here because of my own choosing? I may be the messenger of the Gods but I do have my own voice you know." He complained.

 _We always know Hermes goes where he wants because it's what he wants, right George?"_ The raspy snake voice sounded in Marcus's head.

 _Oh always, got any rats Marcus?_ Marcus finally noticed the two snakes surrounding Hermes caduceus that was impales into the ground beside him. "W-what? Um…no I don't have any rats." He stuttered.

 _George not everyone has time for rats_. Martha scolded. Marcus gaped at the snakes before Hermes snapped at the snakes to remain quiet. "For once, I am here because _I_ have a message." Hermes seemed rather miffed about Marcus's statement about delivering a message so he decided to take the safe route and remain quiet before motioning for his father to continue.

"This refers to the girl, Samantha." Hermes wrinkled his nose momentarily before his features straightened out. "I never would've thought one of my kids would be such good friends with one of Ares', but if it's going to be anyone it's best it her." He grumbled under his breath.

"Whether I like it or not, you're her personal anchor. Someone she can hang on to and rely on when she's in need. And sometime soon, she's going to need you more than ever. The Fates having something in store for her, and my guess is you as well because of your connection. She's important, not to say you aren't either but don't underestimate the rock."

Marcus found himself gaping. Here was his god of a father telling him that Samantha had some important role in the future and that it was his job to keep her in line? How was he supposed to keep her in line when she could roll right over him if she wanted? There was also the fact that his father was effectively calling him a rock but he tried to ignore it. "What do you mean?"

Hermes seemed a little surprised. "It's pretty straightforward, you are her rock. A large rock is always standing, strong and unmoving. You can always rely on the fact that it will be there, no matter what you do. You can tie yourself to the rock and know you will never be swept away. That is what you are for the girl."

Marcus still didn't like being compared to a rock. He bit his lip for a moment, aware of his father's gaze on him. He had been pushing off thinking about it, but the second last line of the prophecy predicted someone's sacrifice, and there was the chance it could be either him or Samantha. But apparently, both of them needed to survive. He shuddered. He didn't want to lose anyone on this quest, but someone would have to be a sacrifice to secure the outcome of this quest and that's what several of the Titans had called him forward to do.

Marcus's head snapped up. _That's why the Titans demanded he step forward and sacrifice himself_. They _knew_ of his importance, before even he did. It made him a bit angry about that fact that he was just being told of his importance now while clearly the Titans had known for some time. Hermes seemed to notice his sudden realization and unease and nodded his head. "You understand now why you're wanted dead. I f the Titans go to war, that girl could be the tipping point and you not being there could have a massive impact on her."

Marcus was stunned. "But why me of all people? I'm nothing special by myself." The words left a bad taste in his mouth. As much as he was a trained demigod and rather capable in his own right, most of Camp Half-Blood didn't respect him for whom he was. If anything, they were scared of him because of his link with Samantha, and she terrified everyone. He'd never really had the chance to make a name for himself, to prove himself for what he was

Hermes shrugged. "You're a jack of all trades Marcus, quite rare for one of my kids to truly be one despite being average at most things supposedly being a shared trait of my children. Arguably, none of your skills stand out among the others as your master skill. You'll always be mediocre at everything."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "Thanks for being blunt about it dad." But as he heard the words leave his mouth, he realized how true it was. He was just across the board _good_. Not great, but good enough at most things that he was competent.

Hermes blinked for a moment before he seemed to fully process what he said. "Marcus you know what I mean. You'll be mediocre at _everything_ , not excel at anything but not suck at anything either. Every excellence has a drawback, just ask that girl Samantha."

Marcus narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean by that? She's one of the strongest fighters I know, and one of the most independent." He glanced back towards the camp but it didn't appear anyone was awake. "She's never shown much of a sign of weakness in any aspect, and is smart enough to cover any weaknesses."

Hermes smiled grimly. "You'll realize it eventually. Don't be too envious of what others have because there's always something you don't see, You can't steal and have everything in the world."

Marcus let a laugh escape him. "Did the god of thieves really just say that? And I think I'll leave the stealing to my siblings thanks."

Hermes laughed and winked before he stood up and brushed himself off. "That was not entirely what I meant, but you'll see soon enough. Good luck Marcus, and understand that people do look up to you."

He picked up his caduceus. " _Next time bring a rat._ George said before being immediately scolded by Martha.

" _George lay off the boy. Not everyone has time for rats. Ignore him Marcus, goodbye and good luck._ "

Marcus waved and said his goodbyes to the snakes before Hermes nodded and began to glow. He averted his eyes and looked back once the light died. IN the sport Hermes had been standing in was a note. Marcus picked it up and read through the scribbled words. _I'll be watching, just know I am proud. For the remainder of your quest I've left bags with supplies beside the campfire. Use them well_."

Marcus read through the whole thing once but his eyes kept returning to _I am proud_. He never thought he'd hear those words, much less from his god of a father. Heck he had thought he might not meet his father in his lifetime. Marcus set the note down and leaned around the tree to see three yellow waterproof duffel bags sitting beside the smoking remains of the campfire and smiled. _Thanks Dad_.

He turned back and relaxed against the tree. He'd probably get Grayson up at somepoint to take over watch but right now it was just him alone in his thoughts as he picked up the note again to reread that line. It boosted his self-confidence a little.

As he read the line for probably the 50th time, heard footsteps coming from behind him and sighed. "Jon, shouldn't you be resting? You have a lot of things on your mind right now, go sleep it off."

Marcus got no answer except for leaves crunching under the feet of whoever it was and they settled down on the tree roots beside him. He set the note down beside the sword on the ground before he noticed something wavy moving in the corner of his vision. _Jon doesn't…wait a minute!_ His eyes widened in realization and turned to see Samantha looking at him expectantly, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she giggled briefly. "Expecting someone else Brooke?"

Marcus stuttered momentarily before Sam lightly punched his shoulder. "Quit overreacting Brooke, it's just me."

Marcus shook his head for a moment and just stared. "But…you're supposed to be exhausted? You fainted! How come all of a sudden you're perfectly fine?"

She smiled and winked. "I'm just awesome like that. Although potentially could be related to something that happened while I was out."

Marcus felt himself pouting. "You can't just leave me hanging like that! I need an explanation!"

Samantha sighed for a moment before she laid her head on his shoulder. "I talked to my father."

Marcus winced and regretted pushing her now. While Samantha was very respectful towards her father, he knew she resented him a bit for her being so different from her siblings. Despite her rigid stance to be different, she was often uncomfortable being the odd one out. Even in a world where being different was normal. On the other hand, his father appearing the same night couldn't be a coincidence. "You're sure about it?"

Samantha gave her confirmation. "It was also a warning. He said to be sure I did not make the same mistake that the Japanese did in the Second World War during Pearl Harbour."

Marcus blinked. "Attack the United States?" He knew it was a wrong answer the minute he said it and cringed slightly. Samantha rolled her eyes but he could see the corners of her mouth twitch as she hid her smile.

"No you idiot, it was making sure the objective is there before going in. What I think he means is, what if their leader isn't there? What if we battle through whatever monsters are there and there's nothing actually there on the mountain?"

Marcus rubbed her back to comfort her. "It'll be fine, we'll figure it all out and it'll work out for us in the end. It's always been like that with us and it'll continue to be that way. We're in this together remember? It'll be fine."

Samantha nodded hesitantly, looking like she was trying to convince herself of those words, as was Marcus. She started to speak, but then stopped herself before looking up. "Unfortunately he hasn't been the only god recently to visit with a warning."

Marcus's eyebrows rose in surprise that she had hidden a visit from a God from him but he remained quiet and nodded for her to continue. She didn't like interruptions when she was talking about something sensitive to her. She glanced down and twirled the laces of her boots around her fingers. "About a year ago I got a visit from Athena." She looked up to see his wide eyes and nodded. He opened his mouth to speak but she gently nudged him with an elbow. "Let me speak Brooke, this isn't going to be easy for me."

Marcus shut his mouth immediately as she took a deep breath and continued. "She said she came to warn me of my own weakness. She warned me that if I let it, it would tear me apart piece by piece until I lose my mind. I guess fatal flaws are called fatal for a reason."

Samantha bit her lip and tugged on her jacket sleeves. "My fatal flaw is responsibility. I'm willing to take responsibility for anything and everything, no matter what happens and no matter what the outcome is."

Marcus was both stunned and confused. "How is taking responsibility a fatal flaw? Isn't that a sign of leadership?"

Samantha gave a small smile and a tight shakes of her head. "Maybe, but it's the mental strain of taking responsibility for any outcome. Any leader needs to be able to handle the high levels of stress and responsibility that come with taking leadership, but my weakness is I can't. Think about it, say someone dies in an accident and I take responsibility. That's a burden that I will carry thinking I was responsible for someone's death. The guilt and the mental stress will take its toll, especially with the life expectancy of the demigods around me."

Marcus nodded, finally understanding and pulled her into a hug. He wasn't sure what to say, but understood he didn't need to say anything as she buried her face in his shoulder. After taking several deep breaths she calmed down and pulled away, keeping her hands on his shoulders. "What Athena also said is my fatal flaw is unique because there is a way of keeping it from being fatal."

Marcus wasn't sure if he could be stunned any more times by tonight's developments but he suddenly was again. "I've never heard of that. What keeps it from being fatal for you?"

She smiled, suddenly much more animated than before. "My best friend. Not meaning to objectify you, but you're my anchor to the world. As long as you're there for me, your best friend will remain the Samantha you know."

Marcus smiled, fully understanding what Hermes meant by being her rock, and one of his hands found his way into hers. "I promise I'll always be there for you, as long as you're there to save my ass when I'm in trouble. Deal?"

Samantha grinned at his choice of words, mirroring the promise they had made under the stars one night all those years ago. "Deal."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Marcus asked, "What would you have done if I had to go on a quest without you?"

Samantha didn't miss a beat in her response. "I'd sneak out and kill anyone who got in my way, then kill you for leaving without me. Do you think I would let you go out into the world by yourself without me watching your back? At least for this quest I was chosen to go, so I'm a member of this quest first as your best friend and supporter, but secondly because I need to prove myself that I am capable.

Marcus sat up in shock. "Y-you need to prove yourself? That you are capable?" He stuttered. "Are you kidding me? If anyone has to prove themselves it's me! People only seem to respect me because you're around and they're scared to death of you! This quest, as bad as it could end, is a chance for me to show I have the ability to perform, to hold my own, to succeed when all is against me. I don't care about the glory that comes with completing a quest, anyone can take that, but this is a test for me. A test to prove to myself and everyone else that I can be successful!"

Samantha was staring at him in shock throughout the rant and for once seemed at a complete loss for words. It was when she looked away and blinked that Marcus realized maybe he had been a bit too hard in his assessment of what being around her is and immediately wanted to take it back. "Sam…"

The short silence that followed was agonizing. Marcus wasn't sure what to say, and neither did she as her face morphed through a couple expressions before settling on one that seemed pained. He was taken aback for a moment about how vulnerable she looked, and he felt a sudden urge to hug her and comfort her the way he used to when she was upset over being teased for being different. Except this time he was the source of her pain and he felt terrible about it. Her gaze remained on the ground before she finally raised her eyes to meet his. "You really think no one understand what you can do? That you haven't proven yourself, that no one respects you? Her voice came out in a dead whisper.

She shifted so her legs were tucked underneath her and continued in the same quiet whisper Marcus had never heard before. "What if I told you there's no need to prove yourself? That you already have to some and you have the full respect of others."

Marcus blinked. "How could I have earned that? I've never done anything to warrant respect from someone else, why would they respect me? I've only seemed to have a talent to screw things up or fail when it matters, why should anyone respect someone who isn't capable?"

Samantha rested her hands on her knees. "You're missing the point Brooke. You can be respected just for being you. For the way you act towards others, your willingness to look out for people, for your heart and courage. There's different types of respect, but the one you have now is the best one to have."

Marcus felt slightly overwhelmed. "R-really? I've always screwed everything up, even though it would be going ok for a while it usually doesn't end well. People are ok with that?"

Samantha rubbed his shoulder. "That's just your confidence, realize that mentally if you think it'll fail you just make it more likely to fail. Mental fortitude come on, bring out that inner strength I know you have. Just don't do it when you're against me in capture the flag."

Marcus laughed. "You know when I managed to trick you into having your ankles tied up, that's one of the few times one of my plans actually worked." He earned a playful glare from Samantha and a punch in the shoulder.

"They don't work because I'm the strategist. Also your stupid metal rope put a lot of dents in my boots that night you know? Maybe we should stop by a mall so you can buy me a new pair of boots."

Marcus grinned. "So now you're an Aphrodite girl who's concerned about the look of her boots even though said girl has kicked many people with said boots which created dents long before my rope did?" He laughed and dodged the punch Samantha threw at him before she began to laugh as well. After they settled down Marcus remembered the gift from Hermes. "Also, you may have noticed my father left some supplies for the rest of the quest. We can go through it in the morning." 

Samantha let out a quiet cheer. "Hooray for the god of travelers, probably knew exactly what to pack for us so that's great! We'll just have to sort it through in the morning so another thing to add to our growing list." Her jaw stretched in a yawn and she blinked drowsily.

Marcus nudged her. "You need more rest. After that crazy act you pulled with all the weapons in the museum you're probably completely drained. Get some sleep." But instead of settling back she grinned and stretched out a hand. Menoetius's sword rose off the ground beside Marcus, hovering a few inches in the air as it obeyed her mental commands.

Marcus blinked and tapped the sword, watching it wobble a bit in the air before stabilizing itself and glanced back at Sam. He noted with some alarm she looked a bit strained and he reached out to grab her wrist, causing the sword to drop to the ground. "You never listen to me do you Sam?"

Samantha smiled and allowed Marcus to drop her hand to her side. "Just shut up Brooke." She said before resting her head against the tree and his shoulder. He smiled and sat back, looking up at the moonlight shining through the branches of the tree above him until he heard Sam's breathing quiet to a constant rhythm. He idly wondered what the time was, but figured they would be ok if he drifted off. Maybe someone was awake to keep watch for them. The bodily strain of his injuries and fatigue finally hit as he let his eyes close and he passed out.

Marcus awoke the next morning to a cough. He leaned his head back and yawned before slowly opening one eye and noticing a smirking Jon standing over him. "Whenever you feel like moving Marcus, everyone else is up. Although I'd be careful if I were you. Don't want to wake the bear that's using your chest for a pillow."

Marcus blushed and glanced down at the sleeping Samantha as Jon walked back aroun the tree back to camp. He reached over slowly and brushed some of her hair out of her face, she seemed so angelic just like how she looked when he carried her out of the museum last night. The same calmness and seemingly innocence he had thought she had when they first met was so present on her face it was hard to wake her up.

But they had to determine what they were going to do next, so he gently nudged her shoulder and she stirred. Her eyes opened slowly and she smiled before sitting up. "Morning."

Marcus stretched his limbs out a bit before getting to his feet and offering a hand to Samantha, who smiled and accepted the hand. He pulled her up and checked around the side of the tree to see that everyone was awake and clearing stuff near the campfire. "Looks like they started without us."

Samantha just shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time and definitely won't be the last. Let's go take a look."

Turns out Hermes really had thought of everything. The duffel bags contained everything from fresh clothes to mortal money and drachmas. Marcus grinned as they went through the things, which also included snacks and Jon wasted no time popping open a bag of Oreos and downing several, much to Alex's dismay.

They gathered around the campfire, which was once again crackling with a flame. Marcus glanced at each of them to assess their state. Grayson seemed to be the most rested of them all, but was sporting a multitude of bruises from being thrown into that wall in the museum. Alex looked exhausted, which was very understandable considering most of her energy had been spent healing the others all night. Jon looked similarly exhausted but not too injured which Marcus was thankful for. He looked a little distracted and unfocused but Marcus had also learned he had woken up to take over watch at somepoint last night. That just left him and Samantha. Both of them sported injuries, with his probably being the worst in the group but the godly food consumed last night had healed enough so he was ok to go.

Marcus looked at everyone before glancing behind him at the tent where Leah still lay. "So, first thing we need to figure out: what do we do with Leah? She needs full medical attention and I don't think we can finish the quest with her with us."

Jon narrowed his eyes. "Are you implying she's a deadweight?"

Marcus opened his mouth to speak but stopped when Alex glared at him before speaking softly to Jon. "Jon he's not implying anything, we are just weighing our next options and how to move forward from our position. We all know full well Leah isn't a deadweight normally, but her current state isn't the normal Leah."

Everyone looked towards the tent this time and no one spoke for a bit. Finally it was Grayson who broke the silence. "I can take her back to camp."

Everyone's heads swiveled to the dark-haired girl in shock. Marcus noticed she didn't flinch this time when all the attention was focused on her, instead she took a deep breath and nodded. "I can send an Iris message back to camp, ask for extraction and get Leah back to the full infirmary."

Alex made a noise of protest but Grayson held a hand up to stop her. "I'll go back with her. Out of everyone I'm the one that has no outstanding capabilities necessary for a questing group or prophecy about me. I'm the least needed member of this quest, so you can afford to move forward without me."

She fell silent and everyone glanced at each other before all eyes settled on Marcus. He sent a surprised glance towards Samantha, who shook her head before he locked eyes with Grayson. "You're sure about this? You're definitely not the most useless person on this quest if that is your reason for taking Leah back." _That would be me_. He added mentally. _Unless you count triggering Samantha by being injured as being useful._

Grayson set her jaw and nodded. Marcus raised an eyebrow, surprised at her determination before he nodded. "Ok, get a hold of camp and see if they can send pickup. We can stay as long as we can but something tells me we don't have much time left and we need to keep moving. Speaking of which, do we have a target location other than west?"

Alejandra raised her hand. Marcus was beginning to wonder why they resorted to a classroom style raising hand but he ignored that thought and turned his attention to her. "It was my turn to have this dream of direction that seems to be going around. I saw several Titans on a mountain, with the ruins of a black stone fortress. That's Mount Othrys right? The base of the Titans during the wars?"

Jon looked shocked but nodded. "That's on Mount Tam in San Fransisco."

Alejandra nodded. "So that's where we are heading, their leader I think is a Titan with ram's horns. He said…" Her voice shook for a moment before returning to normal as Jon wrapped an arm around her. "He said the attack is coming in three days and he will be there to lead it."

There was a tense silence before Samantha spoke up. "Well we need to make sure he doesn't make it to lead that army right?" Her words were meant to be motivating but Marcus could hear the hesitation beneath them. "Grayson, go get a hold of the camp now. They need to know what's coming and we need to finish this quest to get back. Leader or not that army is going to be coming."

No one argued as Grayson got to her feet and ran towards the tent to locate the spray bottle. Camp Half-Blood is their home and monsters were not stepping foot in it. That was when Marcus noticed a problem in this whole 'attack camp' plan. "Wait a moment, how is the army going to bypass our barriers?" He questioned.

A voice spoke from behind him. "I believe I can answer your question Marcus."

They whirled to see an Iris message of Chiron behind them. "You see, many events over the past couple decades have either weakened or removed the barrier altogether from the sea. I believe this happened when sea monsters were used as a form of travel and it was an easy way for them to get to the shores without demigods wandering out into the sea to reach them."

They glanced at each other and Samantha spoke up. "How did you find out this was a weakness?" She asked.

A voice came from outside the field of view, one that was both amused and irritated at the same time. "A telekhine floated onto the beach in a rubber raft with a pizza box. He got dispatched pretty quickly but there was a radio inside the pizza box, most likely to notify someone that he got through the barriers."

Alyssa Hu appeared beside Chiron with a somewhat grim expression gracing her Asian features. The groups' expressions must've been pretty good because Alyssa looked a bit offended. "I'm not joking! It happened! Chiron tell them it happened."

Jon coughed. "Alyssa, no one doubted you to begin with anyways."

Chiron sighed beside the daughter of Hecate. "Yes unfortunately it is true, which confirms the Titans are coming. The camp is preparing for battle again, which it has not seen in quite some time. Has anything else transpired related to the quest?"

Jon spoke up. "We managed to rescue Leah, but…" His voice cracked and he coughed to fix it. "She's in this shell-shocked state right now. We need a team to come retrieve her. Grayson has volunteered to help escort her back but she needs full medical attention as soon as possible." Jon nudged Alex before shooting Grayson a grateful look.

Alex looked confused for a moment before remembering her dream. "Oh right! I had a dream about the Titans. It seems the one to lead the attack is one with a helmet of rams horns. Our next objective from what I could figure out is to reach Mount Othrys on Mount Tam."

Chiron and Alyssa both looked uneasy at the mention of Mount Tam and it was easy to understand why. No one wanted to think about having to walk up to the base of the Titans, but it seemed like they didn't have a choice with this quest. Marcus thought back over the lines of the prophecy, how it stated the defeated will rise once again, which sounded like even if they took down the Titan leading the army on this quest, more will come to replace them. He shook his head, no point in lingering and he could almost hear Chiron saying, "Prophecies always have double meanings, do not linger over them."

He returned his attention to the Iris message in time to hear Chiron saying, "do not linger over them."

Marcus internally snorted but snuck a glance at Samantha, who once again seemed a little pale and a bit guilty. Chiron then called on Grayson. "We'll send Alyssa, Martin and Ethan in the flying chariot to pick you up. Alyssa, please let them know and make preparations to leave as soon as possible."

She nodded to Chrion and directed a grin towards the group. "The Apollo cabin just got it fixed, try not to break it on them. Took a lot longer this time and they'll be really mad if they have to repair it again." She smirked before taking off out of view.

Chiron watched Alyssa run down to the cabins before turning his attention back to the group. "It will be up to you on how you will reach San Francisco within the next two days. Unfortunately you may not have the time to stay behind until the extraction team reaches your location, as you must pass through the Garden of Hesperides and it only opens at sunset. I leave the decision up to you, but you must reach Mount Tam to stop the Titans."

Jon snorted. "Right as if we haven't had enough of the Titans already." He muttered. Then he raised his voice. "Understood Chiron."

Chiron nodded from the other side of the Iris message. "From your description, the Titan leading the army is Krios. Grayson may have some knowledge on him but he did not participate in the assault on Olympus in the Second Titan War, instead staying behind on Mount Othrys. I wish you luck."

With that he waved his hand through the mist and cut the connection. As the mist dissolved in the rays of the rising sun they all looked at each other before looking at Grayson. Her eyes wandered for a bit as she through back through her impressive memory before she noticed everyone's attention was on her again and she blushed. "Give me a few minutes to recollect everything that I remember and prepare for the extraction team."

Marcus shrugged. "I've got an idea to get from LA to San Francisco but nothing before that. Let's pack up and figure out our next steps.

 **A/N** : **I'm still holding a really crappy track record with updates and such, but apparently chapters are getting longer and I'm not entirely sure if they're getting longer because of good writing and ideas or if I'm just writing stuff to extend the chapter (which I haven't intentionally done, maybe unintentionally). I hope the interactions between the group members are becoming more interesting and give a little more insight into the connections the characters have to each other. See you all in a couple weeks!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my own OC's. The rest belong to their creators.**

 **A/N: Hi again, hopefully this was a much faster update than some of you expected. It's another POV from one of the OC characters sent in! I really hope you guys like it and I realize I should be doing review responses as I seem to be neglecting my reviewers (I love you guys don't worry!)**

 **storysupporter: I absolutely will be continuing it! Updates may slow down between May and August due to school but I will keep going!**

 **joshadams: No worries! I know exactly what it means to be busy with things so no problem at all! I know you're always there reading it regardless of a review or not! And yes I intend to not make it easy, but the sparks are there!**

 **happyanimallover: Maybe you can relate more now that the entire chapter is your character :D enjoy!**

 **jocahill: hopefully I keep meeting your expectations and keep producing awesome chapters for you!**

 **On with the show!**

 **Grayson POV**

Grayson was thoroughly impressed by how many things could possibly go wrong in a span of a couple hours. From injuries to burns to more bruises, nothing seemed to go her way today.

Later in the morning, the group had packed up to catch the local transit bus to the train station because of the time constraints that had suddenly appeared for the quest. She understood the reasons, but now she was rather nervous as she waited for the team from camp to reach her. It was just after noon, and as she glanced over at Leah, she couldn't help but be worried for everyone. Leah was sitting against a tree in a semi-conscious state and Grayson was becoming increasingly frustrated as to why she didn't know what was causing Leah's condition. _Why don't you know?_ She scolded herself. _You're supposed to know as much as you can, but this escapes you?_

She leaned on her side against a tree in an effort to avoid the extensive bruising across her back, gingerly touching a couple bruises and winced. She was very unhappy about not recognizing the fire exit as a potential factor in that fight. She was a daughter of Athena, and children of Athena simply do not leave things out of planning.

Grayson touched her forehead to the tree and sighed. Something was happening to her, she was feeling something she hadn't felt before and it was distracting. Very distracting. She let her mind wander back through the events of the quest. She had thought she had been prepared for every situation, but illogical things such as Samantha's sudden control over weapons or Jon's light emittance were events so improbable she had not planned for it. _Jon_. Thinking about him sent something through her body she just wasn't sure about and she thought to just before the group had left and he had pulled her aside.

He had looked fairly battered from the previous fight, but his eyes showed all of the emotional stress he seemed to be under as he glanced down and asked her to take care of Leah. But then he had said, "Please, I want to see Leah make it back, but make sure you do to." His hands fidgeted a bit. "Please be safe."

He had hesitated before pulling her into a brief hug, carefully avoiding her bruises and then rejoined the group in their preparations to leave. .

She reached down her shirt and pulled out the dogtags that hung around her neck, brushing her thumb over her initials stamped into the thin metal. _Why have I changed? What is it that he does that affects me?_

It couldn't be love. Love was illogical, impractical, made no sense to her. If anything, it was a connection of minds similar to her father and mother, a specific bond between two people. She didn't have anyone besides Alyssa with whom she shared a close bond with, she had some friends but it wasn't the same as this thing called love. Love just didn't exist for her yet. Heck, she'd talked to him less than ten times, which hardly was enough of a starting ground for a connection. She wasn't even sure how his mind worked or how it operated, but it was definitely not the same level of planning and intensity as hers. She growled a bit in frustration. _Then why do I feel this way?_

She then presented herself with a few choices on how to move forward. One would be to shut the feelings down at the source. It was logical, but unfortunately the source was Jon and Grayson was rather against killing him to turn off a distraction. It wouldn't sit well and murdering a fellow demigod was not as logical as it had initially seemed. She mentally blacked that idea out as much as she could. The next choice was to simply accept the problem and silently deal with her feelings the way they were. Unfortunately, the problem would remain unaffected and she would stay distracted, which was not a logical course of action either.

The third option was to confront him with regards to her feelings, which was a very surreal idea to her. Discussions require some form of logical background and supporting details, but feelings were neither of those. How could she talk to someone about _feelings?_ Especially since it was the boy she supposedly had said feelings for. She shook her head; it was an impractical course of action.

There was also the problem that she suspected that Jon had feelings for the girl she was currently overseeing. A logical solution tot that was to remove Leah but she shook her head. That was just as illogical as the idea to remove Jon, not a feasible solution. But why was she having thoughts like that? Was this more feelings that she had never felt before and were changing her thought process?

Grayson wasn't sure how to process this new information. It felt like she was suddenly a spectator to her own mind. It was hers, but she suddenly wasn't in control because she had been pushed aside into the stands by something new. All her life, raw information and logic had always had priority over her feelings, but now she was beginning to reconsider her former life stance.

She grimaced. If she talked to someone about this problem she'd probably become a joke of a daughter of Athena. One of Athena's children struggling with feelings instead of using her brain? She snorted internally. _What a ridiculous concept._

But at the same time, there was a nagging voice at the back of her head questioning, _is it really?_ She shook her head. How could she be so confused? There shouldn't be any confusion, logic over feelings any day. But no, it wasn't working out that way anymore.

She was brought out of her internal rant by the sound of low voices and the ground shaking slightly from heavy footsteps. Her head shot around, dark hair flying as she peered through the trees in the direction of the voices in shock, realizing how close they were to her. It didn't take very long to identify sentences and hear a voice saying, "I smell demigod."

At that point, Grayson remembered Leah was a daughter of Hades, and supposedly the Big Three's children smelled particularly strong to monsters. She cursed, turned and sprinted through the trees back to the packed up campsite. As she sprinted, Grayson ran through as may possible scenarios as her increasingly panicking mind could process. Turning and fighting was not a logical solution, neither was hiding and hope they overlooked her given their numbers and their noses. The only option they had was to flee deeper into the woods.

As she reached Leah, who still hadn't moved but seemed conscious, she made the quick decision to leave her pack behind. Leah's weight was going to be hard enough to move quickly with and there was nothing of sentimental value in that bag. However, she did open up one of the pockets and stuff a couple of wrapped up squares of ambrosia into her back pocket just in case. Closing the bag and tossing it into a bush where she hoped it would stay hidden, she bent down beside Leah and wrapped one of Leah's arms over her shoulder before standing up slowly. Leah only semi-supported herself, with Grayson carrying the other half of the weight but they managed to stumble away from the campsite and approaching monsters.

The lead on the monsters, which she assumed were either giants or telekhines due to the masculinity of the voices, was not much. Maybe 100 meters away from where the campsite, she heard a roar behind her. "Demigods were here! Search the forest! Find our lunch!"

Grayson was in no mood to become a monster's lunch today. She tried to quicken her pace, half supporting half pulling Leah over the uneven terrain. Fortunately, Leah's legs seemed to work enough to move at a decent enough pace. As they started their slightly faster than walking speed walk, Grayson suddenly realized she had no plan going forward. Her temporary panic had prevented her from seeing the obvious problem in their escape: how the extraction team was going to find her. She had just abandoned the only clearing they knew about, which mean the team looking for her would have to search large sections of the forest before finding her. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, and Grayson quickly calculated there was about a 5% chance of her being found within the next few minutes. Perhaps a 30% chance she was found before the monsters caught up.

A voice overhead calling, "Grayson!" quickly exploded that calculation.

She looked up so fast she thought her neck might snap from the force. Shooting over the trees directly above her was two pegasi pulling the camp's flying chariot. Alyssa was waving over the edge as it passed over and Grayson was filled with overwhelming relief, but much of it disappeared when she realized they couldn't land unless she reached a clearing or the edge of the woods. Grayson didn't notice she had stopped moving, or had been staring up at the chariot until a tree a few meters away exploded. She instinctively yelped and ducked, pulling Leah behind a tree as branches rained down around her. Taking a quick glance around the tree, she saw several Laistrygonians struggling through the woods, pulling trees out of the ground in a slow, steady advance. One seemed to spot her and hefted one of their flaming bronze cannonballs.

Her eyes widened and she dragged Leah away from the tree as fast as she could before it exploded, throwing the two girls backwards and sending a storm of wood pieces flying through the air. Grayson groaned as the impact sent fiery pain shooting through her body but thankfully the impact hadn't knocked her unconscious. She checked to make sure Leah was ok before glancing behind her towards the approaching giants. They were tall and extremely ugly, with rippling muscles, numerous tattoos across their body and these wild looking eyes.

Grayson made a promise to herself that when the time came for her to die it wouldn't be to one of these ugly things. Unfortunately, they were pointing and calling, "lunch!" in her direction.

"Time to go." She muttered to herself before slinging Leah's arm over her shoulder again and stumbling past the burning trees as she heard the roar from behind and the stomping of heavy feet on the ground.

The second time the flying chariot passed over her, Grayson heard ugly cheering rising from behind her. She risked a glance behind her and saw the Laistrygonians had stopped pursuing her and were pointing towards the chariot and cheering. They would be ok in the air, Grayson thought, until a giant that seemed to be the leader cocked his arm and flung another fireball into the sky. The fiery cannonball exploded near them in the sky and the shockwave almost flipped the chariot mid-air and also spooked the pegasi who tried to fly in different directions. Martin managed to grab on to the rail and Ethan was wresting with the reins to regain control of the pegasi as the chariot bucked and dipped but Alyssa was thrown out of the chariot. Grayson could only watch as her best friend shrieked and fell down into the trees, hearing a number of twigs and branches breaking before she hit the forest floor with a loud thump.

Grayson winced at the sound of the impact and began pushing through branches and bushes in an effort to reach her. Soon she managed to make her way to Alyssa, who had sat up and was picking leaves and twigs out of her long, red-streaked hair. Dressed in a camp t-shirt, jeans and her stack-heeled combat boots, she turned as Grayson neared. "I never, ever want to do that again."

Grayson snorted and held out a hand to help her up. "Falling from a couple stories in the air is usually hazardous to your health."

Alyssa rolled her eyes and accepted the hand, pulling herself up. "Good to see you didn't die on this quest too, Gray."

She then pulled Grayson into a quick hug, but quickly let go as Grayson yelped when her arms came in contact with her bruises. "Oh my gods I'm so sorry! Why didn't you say something?"

Grayson winced. "I would have if you gave me the chance. We can talk later, right now we need to get moving to stay ahead of the incoming monsters. Help me with Leah."

The daughter of Hecate nodded and finally glanced down at the semi-conscious girl on the ground. "Holy crap! What _happened_ to her?"

Grayson waved it off. "I'll explain later, let's go!"

To punctuate her words, a voice growled, "There!"

A cannonball sailed through the air and exploded nearby and that was all the encouragement Alyssa needed to quickly get under Leah's other side and begin moving through the trees at a slightly faster than walking pace. Running through the woods trying to carry an unconscious girl is not an ideal way to escape. Fortunately the Laistrygonians weren't exactly fast either. Grayson could hear them bowling over trees and tripping over tree roots behind them. Unfortunately, Alyssa was doing almost as much tripping due to her boots, earning a glare from Grayson. "Why don't you ever seem to wear practical shoes?" She hissed.

Alyssa gave her a look that suggest Grayson had told her what a wonderful idea it would be to wander through the Fields of Punishment for some relaxation. "You know I'm perfectly capable in whatever shoes I wear! I just didn't expect to be running for my life over tree roots, which regardless of footwear is a tripping hazard!"

As if to prove her point, Grayson was too busy glaring at her best friend to pay attention to where she was running and felt her toe collide with a tree root. She had no time to recover and went sprawling. Despite them running for their lives, Alyssa stopped and doubled over laughing as Grayson slowly picked herself off the ground, shooting a glare at the other girl before wiping her hands off on her jeans. "I don't want to hear about it." She grumbled as Alyssa finally stopped laughing and got under Leah's other arm so they could keep moving.

They kept going, looking up occasionally to spot Martin for his directions to where the chariot could land. Soon, the trio stopped for a moment to catch their breath. Martin called down from the chariot. "Almost there! About a hundred meters and then we can land!"

This was very much a 'reach the extraction point' scenario Grayson enjoyed planning for back at the camp, although now that she was the one being chased to the extraction point she wasn't sure she'd be creating one of those plans anytime soon. Finally catching her breath she turned to Alyssa. "Let's-"

She was cutoff by Alyssa shoving her and Leah to the ground at the same time Martin overhead yelled, "Look out!" She gasped as a flaming bronze cannonball sailed through the air where they had been standing and exploded into the ground between two trees ahead of them.

Alyssa had ducked after shoving them and rolled to the right. She came up on one knee, her pistol in her hand. Despite all the time she had spent around Alyssa, Grayson still had to cover her ears as Alyssa fired three shots and the Laistrygonian that had been behind them vaporized into a shower of gold dust.

Alyssa peered through the trees but it seemed he had been the only giant in their direct vicinity and she holstered her pistol. "Let's move before more show up."

Grayson opened her mouth to tell her that the sound of her gun had most likely attracted the Laistrygonians but Alyssa glared at her to shutup as they began trudging forwards again. Carefully avoiding the smoldering crater, they pushed through a set of bushes and crawled over a ridge, where Alyssa ducked out from Leah's arm. "Go up ahead, I'll catch up."

As Alyssa settled into a position on the ridge with her pistol drawn, Grayson nodded and trudged on ahead. The chariot still flew back and forth above them, the occasional fireball rising from the trees towards it but Ehtan was able to avoid them. For how much longer Grayson gave them about 20% of being hit with the odds decreasing every two minutes until higher numbers of cannonballs appeared. Then it would rise to 60% chance of being hit in some form but hopefully that didn't happen. Unfortunately for her hopes, she estimated that there was a 30% chance of them escaping unscathed, which wasn't good.

Continuing forwards, she listened behind her for any signs of Alyssa coming into contact with monsters and fore a period of time that silence was deafening. Then she heard Alyssa's gun being fired several times, followed by an explosion and a scream. Grayson's head whipped around and she yelled, "Alyssa!"

For a moment, there was no sound other than the smashing of trees in the distance. Then something rustled in the bushes a few meters in front of her. Grayson loosened her grip on Leah and drew her daggers, quickly drawing up a plan but wondering how she would be able to move without leaving Leah in a very vulnerable position. She was momentarily lost in thought and was completely unprepared for when Alyssa burst out of the bushes. Startled, Grayson took a reflexive swipe with her knife, which Alyssa yelped and ducked. "Grayson jeez! Trying to take my head off? Why are you so jumpy all of a sudden? What happened to you?"

Grayson bit her lip as Alyssa voiced the same question she had been mulling over all morning. "Nothing, sorry. Let's go."

As Alyssa picked up Leah and they started moving, Grayson noticed Alyssa limping on her left leg. She asked, "What happened to you?"

Alyssa jabbed a thumb back towards the bushes. "The explosion threw me backwards and I landed awkwardly. I think I sprained my ankle but I'll be fine."

Grayson looked concerned. "Given your position and the number of giants and the size of their fireballs, they had a 55% chance to hit you, with an 80% of injury if it landed within 6 feet of you."

Alyssa glared in return. "I don't need to hear your calculations about odds now Wilson! It's over, deal with it! Now quiet down, I can see the clearing!"

Grayson shrugged but pulled a square of ambrosia out of her back pocket and gave it to Alyssa. Alyssa's glare softened and she accepted the square, sighing as she swallowed it. "Much better."

Up ahead, Ethan had landed the chariot in the middle of the clearing. Martin, his camp tshirt covered in scorch marks, had immediately jumped out to repair damage to the left wheel as Ethan struggled to keep the pegasi in check. They were very skittish and Grayson really couldn't blame them given that explosions had been going off in their near vicinity constantly for the past little while. Martin wasn't happy about it though, with a steady stream of curses emerging from his mouth as the wheel he was trying to fix kept moving.

Grayson nearly fainted with relief, the energy leaving her body as she pushed through the bushes at the edge of the clearing. Martin shot to his feet as they exited the treeline and ran over. "Thank the Gods!" he said as he neared. "We can put Leah in the chariot but we won't be able to get back into the sky until I fix the wheel."

Grayson groaned as she realized they weren't out of it yet, but then raised her head with newfound determination and unslung Leah's arm from her shoulder. "Here, get her in the chariot and get it fixed. I'll delay them!"

Alyssa looked shocked. "Are you sure Grayson?" But once Alyssa fully looked at Grayson's face, she nodded. "You're sure, just don't get killed out there."

Grayson hesitated, but nodded and after making sure Martin was supporting Leah, she plunged back into the edge of the forest. For all that her determination was worth, she wasn't going to be able to distract and escape very well without a ranged weapon. She mentally banged her head against a wall. _What are you thinking?_ She now wished she had taken Alyssa's pistol, but if they were found in the clearing they needed something to defend themselves with at range so she pushed that thought aside. Once she determined she was deep enough in the forest, she stopped and looked around for anything she could possibly improvise into an obstacle. Unfortunately, the giants had made it very clear that they could tear through trees and explode whatever she put in the way with a single fireball.

So the next plan was distraction, but as she glanced around she became a bit demoralized by her options. The best she would be able to do was use one of the oldest distraction tactics in existence and throw a rock against a tree. She considered it. It would rely heavily on none of the Laistrygonians noticing the rock, but as the low growling voices grew louder she ducked down behind a log and gripped the nearest medium-sized rock tightly in her fist.

Looks like she wasn't going to be given much of an option.

She could see her knuckles turning white as she clung to the rock, peering up over the log to see a cluster of giants grumbling as they slogged their way through a swampy section of the forest. She ducked as one turned towards her, feeling her heart pounding and she prayed to whichever God that may be listening that she had not been spotted. Closing her eyes and listening, she strained to hear the growled conversation. "I know I saw something over there by that log!" One growled.

Grayson almost felt her heart stop. They had seen her. She was just about ready to sprint deeper into the forest when she heard another giant growl. "Bah! The last time you saw something it was different coloured leaves! That was no demigod! Keep searching!"

She breathed a sigh of relief, thankfully the giants were not as believing. But that relief vanished instantly as a shadow loomed over her. She risked a glance up, seeing a giant with one foot on the log looking past her. Her breathing hitched and she froze, waiting for the giant to simply look down and see her.

After what seemed like eternity, the giant lifted their foot off the log and turned around as one of the giants yelled behind her. "Ow! Where did that rock come from?"

Grayson had no idea what they were talking about, but this was her window of opportunity. She peered through the trees and cocked her arm back, but hesitated and risked a glance towards the giants to see if any of them were looking. Just like that, her window vanished as the giants turned towards her and she ducked again. "What was that over there?" Growled another giant.

Grayson whimpered as quietly as she could. It was a costly mistake she had just made, and as the ground pounded from the footsteps of the giants, she wondered if it would be her last. Then the footsteps stopped and she wondered if it was silent because she was about to die, but then a giant growled "Who's that girl over there?"

Grayson's spirits rose. Alyssa? But how did she make it through the woods with her sprained ankle and boots? Either way, it was enough of a distraction for all the giants and they ran as fast as they could away from Grayson. She practically sobbed with relief as she waited a minute before rising out of her position from behind the log, wondering who had diverted the Laistrygonians away from her.

The problem now was that the giant that had yelled about the rock had not gone with his brethren, but had still been searching for the source of the stone that supposedly hit him and spotted her rising from behind the long. She didn't even see it coming, as Grayson had been looking in the direction of where the giants had run. The fireball exploded against the log behind her, throwing her forwards through the air and painfully into the ground. She let out a yell as she hit and her body felt like it was on fire. Given how close the explosion was, she estimated about two meters, she would not have been very surprised to actually find herself on fire. Fortunately that was not the case, but it sure felt like it to her.

Unfortunately, a few meters away from her, there was a loud rumble. Gingerly rolling over, she watched as a pair of large, meaty arms wrapped themselves around a tree and tore it out of the ground. Tossing it aside, the giant leered at her prone form. Grayson could feel her mind kicking into high gear but her body just didn't respond the same way. She cursed as she realized she had lost both of her knives during her involuntary aerial acrobatics session and Alyssa was nowhere to be seen.

Her body recovered enough for her to meekly scramble backwards on the forest floor as the giant approached her, his yellow, misshapen teeth showing as he grinned. "Finally, I have got lunch!"

He reached down with a meaty hand to grab her, but was interrupted by a rock shooting off of the ground and smacking him in the face. Grayson wasn't sure who was more shocked, her or the giant, but he reeled back as more stones flew up to pelt him. "Gah! Not again you stupid rocks! Let me get to my lunch!"

But the closer the giant tried to get to Grayson, the more stones rose to greet his face. She watched in shock as a larger rock connected solidly with his head, causing his eyes to roll up and collapse heavily to the forest floor. He then burst into a cloud of golden dust, revealing a brown-haired girl behind him holding Grayson's daggers.

As the girl came closer and wordlessly held out a hand to help her up, Grayson noticed the green tint around her eyes. _A dryad?_

A bewildered Grayson could only stare as the dryad turned the knives around and offered them hilt first to her. "T-thank-." She stuttered before shaking her head to clear it and accepting her knives. "Thank you for saving me."

The dryad simply nodded to her before disappearing in a green poof, leaving the scent of cedar behind. Stunned, Grayson could do nothing more but stare at the place she had been. Was it possible this dryad had also been responsible for redirecting the Laistrygonians before when she had been behind the log? Suddenly, she heard a roar rise above the trees and the panicked yelling of the giants along with someone yelling her name through the trees. She whispered, "thank you," before turning and sprinting back trough the trees.

Grayson burst out of the treeline and ran right into Alyssa, causing the two of them to go down. Alyssa rolled over and slowly got back to her feet. "Grayson watch where you're going! Not that I'm not happy to see you, I am don't worry. But thank the Gods, now we can leave!"

Alyssa turned and limped towards the chariot, where Martin and Ethan were both taking a look at Leah, the repairs seemingly completed. Grayson was much slower in getting to her feet, groaning in pain as she glanced back at the trees. There was no sign of the dryad that had rescued her, or the giants for that matter. She turned away and followed the daughter of Hecate. As she hopped in, Martin turned with a sigh of relief. "Thank the Gods. Let's get out of here, snap on it Ethan."

As the chariot took off, Grayosn looked back at the forest behind them with patches of it burning and sirens wailing in the distance, wondering how the giants were faring against the nature spirits of the forest before turning her attention to the horizon.

 **A/N:** **Another OC POV! I actually really enjoy writing these other POVs, especially this one because it shows that the computer that is Grayson is suddenly having a problem it can't deal with normally. I really hope you guys like it, chapters are getting longer and longer it seems and because I write them on my phone on the way to work, I think it takes longer for me to actually type it out on the computer than create the chapter, the next chapter might be slightly delayed since I'm not sure what I have planned for it yet (considering my update schedule I'm not sure you guys will notice the delay :P) but thanks again for reading and I'll see you all next time!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the story and my own characters, everything else is property of their rightful owners.**

 **A/N: I'm back with another chapter! I had a bit of a writer's block for a bit but I'm back and rolling again! Please read the authors note at the bottom, it's very important!**

 **Marcus POV**

Meanwhile not too far from Grayson's flight home, Marcus was having a struggle of his own. "Jon how the Hades does this door open?"

Jon poked his head over Marcus's shoulder. "I think you have to do something with that panel on the wall. Doesn't work? Here let me try." 

Marcus glared at the train door that was refusing to let him pass into the next coach and moved aside. Jon squeezed past and went to work trying to open the door, but after a few tries his cursing revealed it wasn't going well. A glance at Samantha and Alex revealed they were both struggling to hold in their laughter as Jon continued to curse and bang on the door.

Finally unable to hold it in, the two girls looked at each other and burst out laughing. Samantha tapped Jon's shoulder as she continued to laugh and reached past him to press a slender hand on the side panel. The door opened with a quiet hiss, much to the chagrin of both boys.

Jon and Marcus shared an embarrassed look and he heard Jon muter under his breath, "girls," before walking through the door into the next car. Marcus let both Alex and Samantha pass him, with Sam grinning at him as she walked past, and Marcus shook his head before following. There was no one in this car so the group sat down in one of the sets of seats.

Samantha wanted to sleep more so she drew her knees up and leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes. Jon seemed to tune out as well, staring off into space and Marcus knew from experience that he was completely lost in his own mind and he wasn't going to come out of it anytime soon. That just left him and Alex, who played with her hair a bit before looking at Marcus and asking, "So what's your story?"

Marcus glanced up with a surprised look on his face. "My story?"

He realized at that as surprised as he was that she didn't know much about him, it was the same vice versa. He hung out with Jon a lot, and Alex was often there, but he almost never talked to her. Chances are no one had told her about his backstory because hardly anyone knew it, so it makes sense she would be curious.

Alex nodded. "As close as you are with this cynical idiot here," she jabbed her thumb towards Jon, "I've only heard about you through the occasional story at camp and the one time I had to come find you for something. How'd you end up at camp? How was life before being a demigod? How'd you end up with her?"

The last statement was followed by an indication of Samantha and Marcus felt his cheeks colour. Trying to ignore her smirk, he began searching his thoughts. "Ok so where do I begin… so I'm from Toronto, Canada-"

He was cutoff immediately by Alex exclaiming, "You're Canadian?"

Marcus was a bit take aback and nodded mutely. Alex looked a little embarrassed at her outburst but indicated for him to continue. "Anyways my mom is an accountant, not the most outstanding job to attract the eye of a God but it happened anyways. My mom still hasn't told me how she met my dad, but basically I grew up travelling a lot during summers and holiday breaks with her. She also had 3 siblings so there were family gatherings all the time. My cousins were all fantastic at what they did, athletics, academics you name it. I was basically this kid with learning issues that couldn't compare. Maybe that's where the low confidence that Sam complains about all the time comes from, but honestly in my position it was pretty downing. I wasn't great in school and was just ok at everything else, supposedly the jack of all trades Hermes aspect coming into play."

Alex gave him a sympathetic look but he just shrugged. "If my cousins knew the truth about me now, they probably wouldn't be thinking the same way. Anyways, arriving at camp was really strange. I didn't have a satyr watching in my school like most demigods, instead it was my mom that brought me to camp. I ran into a Cyclopes in the downtown area one day and escaped it in the subway system."

Marcus shuddered for a moment as he had a quick flashback to that day and a surge of panic and relief hit him once again as he momentarily relived the vents. He remembered dashing through the station, dodging around other commuters and squeezing into a subway car just as the doors closed. "My mom packed me up immediately and drove through the night to get me to camp. She sent me over the border in the morning, I met Chiron, got the whole orientation thing and then I met her." He lifted his chin towards the sleeping form of Samantha.

He smiled involuntarily as he thought back to the beginning of his time at camp. "She was my tour guide that day, taught me a few things. I also saw a couple different sides of her and I guess she was happy I was someone who was pretty accepting of who she was. Camp wasn't the nicest environment for her, especially in her cabin. Ares is really not the most welcoming. So I guess I was that person that allowed her to escape everything. It's really interesting because she didn't tell me immediately who her godly parent was, so I thought she was this sweet, innocent girl before she broke the nose of one of her half-brothers in front of me and told me her father was Ares."

Alex laughed. "Nasty shock I guess?"

Marcus grinned and nodded. "No kidding. If she told me at the beginning who her father was I probably would've laughed and not believed her, which would have scored me negative points in her mind. I did believe her though, and a number of incidents have happened since that have brought us close together to where we are now."

He thought about last night to the conversation he had with Sam. There was something that seemed so raw, so vulnerable about her as she spoke, the way she opened up and told him everything. Across from him, Alex raised an eyebrow and was most likely aware that he wasn't telling her everything but she didn't push. He was thankful for that, and was suddenly aware of the silence that had fallen between them as he was lost in thought. He decided to return the favour. "So what about you? What's your story?"

Alex momentarily seemed completely lost in thought. She chewed on her nails for a minute before she began. "I was born in Argentina. I don't remember much about it, but my mom moved us to New York and I basically grew up there. Nothing fancy, mom worked as a nurse so it was just me all the time at home."

She began absentmindedly braiding her chestnut hair. "I think because of how I grew up, it made me appreciate my extended family even more. I envy you with your constant family presence." To Marcus's surprise, she wiped a tear away before continuing as he sat in shock, wondering what to do. "My mom wasn't always able to be there for me. I understood that and appreciated that she was busy working hard for us to live, but the loneliness ate away at me. Then when I was 11, my substitute English teacher turned out to be an empousai. She attacked me. I escaped with a classmate who turned out to be a satyr and went straight home, where my mom told me everything."

Alex clenched and unclenched her fists. "She _knew_. All that time she'd known who I was, who my father was, that I would one day be in danger. And she never told me. I wasn't sure how I felt about her then, still not sure now. We were family. Family shouldn't keep secrets from one another. So when I came to camp and learned I had so many other siblings, it was bittersweet."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Bittersweet? In what way?"

Alex glanced at him and Marcus noticed for the first time how piercing her blue eyes seemed to be despite the obvious confliction going on behind them. "I was finally not alone, I had lots of siblings to go to, to ask for help, to learn from. But at the same time, everyone hides something and more family just means more secrets you don't know about. It frustrates me, but then I guess that's when family bonds are the strongest, when they share secrets."

She involuntarily glanced at Jon, but Marcus saw it and glanced at Jon too. "You two really are close aren't you?"

Alex seemed to withdraw from the conversation at the same time as giving him a questioning look before nodding. "He showed me around, he took care of me and everything. I've told him so much, he's the closest family I have now." She said softly.

Marcus nodded, glancing between the two. He was rather curious about what events sparked the bond between the two half-siblings, as well as what Alex's relationship was like with her mother now but she seemed to drift off so he figured he could ask another time. Jon shifted in his sleep, his head lolling sideways while Alex had begun quietly singing to herself in Spanish. Marcus soon found himself lost in thought.

Watching Samantha sleep across from him, curled up in a ball against the window, Marcus was once again hit with a flurry of emotions. He began to think back to when he was younger, before he learned he was a demigod, before he had been pulled from his old life. He'd grown up with his mom living next door to a girl his age named Caitlin. They'd done everything together for years until he'd been attacked and brought to Camp Half-Blood. He'd spent his first summer there, and went home afterwards. Spending more and more time at camp meant he seen to her less, and over time they grew apart. Thinking about it, it was a representation of the takeover of the demigod part of his life, where he left behind his mortal life and moved into the dangerous demigod life.

Then a couple years ago he had decided to spend a year back at school and was in her class, where they began to rebuild their friendship and saw each other almost as often as before. He'd realized at some point during the year that he'd fallen for her. He suspected the crush had most likely formed years ago when they were younger but never understood what it was until then. Being a demigod meant you usually can't pass up on an opportunity because you will never get another shot, so he'd told her that he liked her. She was in a bit of a shock when he had told her, but she had told him afterwards that she did not reciprocate the feelings.

Everything between them had collapsed from there. Afterwards, he barely saw her and he chose to put distance between them to mentally recover and went back to being a full time camper. Ir had hurt for a long time, given how long he had known her. He had eventually gotten over it, or so he told himself.

Thinking about Caitlin tore at his thoughts again, opening that door to the wrecking ball of emotions that had beat him down for a couple months while he remained in school with her. Now looking at the girl sleeping across from him, he was hesitant to do anything again because he didn't want it to happen again. This could be the second time he could alienate a girl he had spent a good portion of his life with, and with Sam he wasn't yet willing to risk their friendship. He valued it too much to screw up a second time, granted maybe if he said something it would go in his favour. But past experience told him otherwise and he wasn't willing to take that risk yet.

The door hissing open and the giggling chatter of a group of girls broke Marcus out of his thoughts as they entered the car. All 4 of the girls seemed about his age, lightly dressed like high school girls and he recognized them as the ones staring at him on the platform before they boarded the train. A couple of them snuck glances at him and giggled as they moved further down the car and settled into seats.

The noise woke the rest of the group up. Jon and Alex were both instantly alert while Samantha still seemed half asleep. Alex turned and glared after the group as they sat down. "I don't like them." She muttered.

Samantha yawned and sat up, arching her back. "Don't like who?" She asked sleepily.

Alex jerked her head towards the group further down the train. "They keep looking in our direction, it's making me nervous."

Samantha risked a glance between her seat and Alex's before shrugging. "They're teens like us, maybe they're just curious."

Jon shook his head. "If they're that curious, they can come and ask. Not everyone is as curious as you SamTam."

Sam's head whipped around to spit a harsh glare at Jon. " _What did you just call me?_ "

Jon just gave a lopsided grin like he had done nothing wrong. Marcus had to give him credit for not flinching under Sam's glare, almost everyone cowered when she got angry. Although now he could say he had seen her _really_ angry but that was beside the point. Sam continued to glare until she sighed through her nose and twisted her ring on her left hand. "Because present company would be very unhappy with your decapitation, you get to live for now. But I'll get you back for that Jon."

Jon just kept grinning, completely unconcerned about his possible impending demise. Marcus chucked as Samantha fumed for a moment before relaxing. "I forgot how much you hate people getting creative with your name," he told her. "But you have to admit that one is pretty good."

She turned her glare towards him and now Marcus had to resist the urge to flinch. He knew from experience she couldn't stay angry with him for long but that didn't make her glare any less scary. She opened her mouth to say something but was distracted by one of the girls walking down the aisle towards them. Everyone glanced up as she passed, and Marcus swore she winked at him as she went past and entered the washroom at the end of the car. 

Once the washroom door shut with an audible _click_ the group relaxed again but Marcus was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. They were paying an unusual amount of attention to him, and he was beginning to think it wasn't because they found him attractive. Sam broke the silence by finally asking,, "What's our plan?"

Jon snorted. "Finally a sensible question. I asked earlier but didn't get anything out of him."

All eyes turned to him and he hesitated. He honestly wasn't sure what the plan was, he was just hoping to get as far west as possible with the money they had. The train was supposed to stopover in Salt Lake City and then go on to Las Vegas but ended there. He had no plan for anything past that. He felt himself sweat a bit internally before opening his mouth. "So Salt Lake City is first, followed by Vegas after a stopover and-"

He was saved from the awkward silence that would have followed when he had nothing to say when Alex suddenly gasped and stood. "Guys we need to leave."

Everyone looked up in surprise. "What? Why?" Jon asked.

Samantha seemed to understand what was going on and was already spinning one of her rings around her finger, something she tended to do when she was anticipating a fight or when she was very tense. "It's those girls. We need to get out of here."

Marcus looked over at the girls and one of them noticed and waved. He subconsciously raised his hand to wave back but stopped when Samantha kicked him. "Cut it out will you?" She whispered. "Come on let's go."

They rose from their seats and began making their way down the aisle towards the exit, but before they got to the door the washroom door opened and the girl that had been inside stepped out into their path smiling. "What's wrong? Leaving our company so soon?"

Marcus stopped in the aisle as the girl met his eyes. Something about her gaze drew him in, causing him to notice every detail about her. From the rising cheekbones to the way her blonde hair framed her face to her blue eyes. Eyes that seemed to swirl like whirlpools as he looked more and more, feeling the world begin to all away around him as his brain fogged up a bit. He hadn't noticed he had taken a step forwards until Samantha elbowed him, causing his head to clear. "Who are you?" She asked coldly to the girl.

The girl made a face. "You're no fun girl, why don't you talk to my friends and I can spend some time with this handsome gentleman.

If Marcus had turned he would have noticed that the other three girls had left their seats and made their way down the aisle towards them. Instead he stood there awkwardly as Samantha glared lasers at the girl. "If you don't mind, we're in a bit of a rush. Can you please move aside so e can get through?" Samantha asked through clenched teeth, struggling to keep her voice level.

The girl smiled innocently. "Now why would I want to move aside and lose a chance to meet some new people? We're not going anywhere, how about we introduce ourselves? My name's Monica and the three behind you are Carolina, Maddy and Lydia."

An outstretched hand accompanied the introduction and Marcus raised his hand up to shake it. Monica's smile seemed to widen as his hand came up until Samantha grabbed his wrist. "What in the name of the Gods are you doing?" She hissed in his ear.

Monica gave an exaggerated sigh. "You stupid girl. You never understand anything do you? He's already mine."

Faster than any of them could follow, the hand that was held out to shake suddenly shot forward and her fingers sank into Samantha's arm. Sam bit back a scream and her grip on Jon's arm tightened tenfold, causing him to yelp as she crushed his wrist in her grip as he struggled to pull his weapon out of his belt with his left hand. Samantha didn't even bother with a weapon, instead she clenched her other hand into a fist and drilled Monica in the face with a punch that knocked her backwards onto the floor of the car. Sam finally let go of Marcus's arm, muttering a quick apology for the bruise marks that were already beginning to form before she quickly inspected her own arm and Marcus finally got his weapon out. There were 5 medium-sized holes in her jacket and in her arm, each oozing blood. She swore and squeezed her rings, causing both of her swords to appear.

Monica finally rose from the ground, her facing looking a bit off as a bruise began to form on her nose. As she rose, her appearance changed. Her hair became a stream of flames, hands turning into long claws and where her shorts ended, Marcus could now see one misshapen metallic bronze leg and one furry leg ending in a large hoof. Blood dripped from the talons of her right hand and he gasped. "An empousai?"

Samantha growled, a sound Marcus had never heard before as blood dripped down her arm, forming a scarlet glove on her left hand. "I'll kill you quickly." She decided before lunging towards Monica.

Behind him, he heard a yell and then a screech. Whipping his head around, he turned just in time to see one of Alex's arrows connect with the girl that had been introduced as Carolina and that empousai vaporized on the spot. Jon had his penknife in sword form and was trying to fend off one of the other empousai while the third got a hand on Alex's wrist as she tried to draw back another arrow and threw her against the wall of the train car. Transforming his sword into a knife to make it easier to fight in the small aisle of the train, Marcus dove forward and body slammed the third empousai, Lydia, away from Alex who was slumped on the floor in a daze after hitting her head on the window. Lydia scrambled back to her feet, laughing. "Boys, always so clueless until it's too late." She sneered.

She began moving towards him in a very strange, jerky gait because of her mismatched legs. Marcus hesitated before charging forward to meet her, ducking a swipe of her talons before slashing at her leg. Now normally, his knife would slice through her and she would dissolve into powder but he chose the wrong leg. He cursed his mistake as his knife clanged off of her bronze leg, jarring his shoulder and causing him to stumble backwards. Lydia laughed and Marcus soon found the same bronze leg connecting with his chest, knocking him back several feet onto his back. Pain lanced through his chest as he landed heavily on his back, seeing stars for a moment as he struggled to breathe.

As he lay on the ground, he was dimly aware of both Samantha and Jon battling empousai. Sam seemed to be winning easily, but was taking her time with her opponent while Jon seemed to be struggling with his long sword in a tight space. It didn't help that the empousai he was facing was tearing seats off of the wall and throwing them through the air, forcing him to be defensive.

Lydia sneered at his prone form before hobbling to where Alex was slumped against the wall. Reaching down with a clawed hand, she closed it around Alex's throat and picked her off the ground. "I'll kill you first for destroying my sister." She growled as she pinned Alex against the wall, her feet not making contact with the ground as she choked.

Jon seemed to hear this exchange and surged forwards, rolling under another thrown seat and slamming the butt of his sword into the forehead of his opponent, causing her to stumble backwards. He turned around, eyes wide as he yelled, "Alex!"

Marcus was the only one close enough to do anything to help, but he couldn't move with his chest the way it was and his previous injuries flaring up, slowing down his movements considerably as he tried to roll over to stand up.

Instead, he watched Alex's free hand groping around for something in her belt before she finally closed it on the thick shaft of an arrow. She gingerly pulled it free and twisted her body, bringing it up and driving it into Lydia's temple. She gave a shriek and vaporized in a cloud of dust that coated Alex, who choked and coughed as she was dropped back to the floor, massaging her throat.

Down the aisle, Jon gave a sigh of relief before turning back to face his opponent. Unfortunately, she recovered much quicker than he had expected and he turned to receive a set of claws raking across the side of his face. The force of the blow knocked him to the ground, creating a surreal image of the flaming empousai rising over his falling body. Then something came flying from outside of Marcus's vision and sank into the empousai, who vaporized. Turning his head as far as it would go, he noticed Samantha standing over another pile of dust with one less sword in her hand. Running over, she nudged his knife off to the side with her boot as he rested his head back on the ground. He grinned weakly as she knelt beside him. "I'm not sure if I would've preferred to be kicked by the donkey leg over the bronze one." He said, then turned his head and coughed.

Samantha rolled her eyes and pulled him up into a sitting position. "Hey, are you ok?"

Marcus raised his eyes to find her brown ones full of concern and nodded. "Most of it is probably just getting the wind knocked out of me, I should be ok." He then turned his head towards the other two. "Hey Alex! Can I get more ambrosia?"

Alex, who was cleaning the cuts that had been slashed across Jon's face, turned and made a face. "You've had too much already, not risking it. However Sam gets something, I'll be with her in a moment." 

Marcus huffed, trying to glare a bit at Alex but she met it with her chin lifted as if daring him to challenge her decision. He dropped his gaze and leaned back against one of the seats. "I give up." He grumbled.

Alex grinned wickedly and then turned back to Jon's cuts. Samantha rose to her feet and hauled Marcus up so he could sit down in one of the seats, with Samantha taking the seat across from him. Alex and Jon settled into seats across the aisle from them as Samantha stripped off her jacket and held her arm out for Alex to attend to. Marcus hadn't gotten a good glance at the wound earlier, but now that he could see it clearly his eyes widened and he sat up off the seat, an action he immediately regretted as he began coughing from the tightening in his chest. Samantha glanced at him with a raised eyebrow as Marcus stared at the holes in her arm.

Blood trickled down her arm from each of the wounds, which Alex cleaned off before dripping nectar onto the wound. "Ow, ow!" Sam growled through clenched teeth as her hands closed into fists before finally relaxing and Alex covered the semi-healed wound with bandages. As Sam pulled her jacket back on Marcus suddenly realized that mortals had been nearby, but a glance towards the end of the car revealed no curios or shocked faces pressed against the glass. _Mortal ignorance is ridiculous_ he thought. He had no idea how the sounds of the fight had not ben noticed but he wasn't going to complain. Since the empousai were gone, the demigods would be the natural mischief suspects in whatever the mortals thought had happened.

A period of silence followed as Marcus rubbed his chest, trying to determine the extent of his injuries. He had said he was OK but felt some discomfort. Samantha, of course, noticed and patted his leg. "Get some rest, I can watch for the rest of the trip."

Marcus raised an eyebrow at this. "You sure?" But he knew she wasn't going to take no for an answer and nodded, resting his head back and closing his eyes.

It only seemed like second later that she was shaking him awake. "We're here, stopover time."

Marcus rubbed his eyes and blinked to clear the last of his sleepiness before he got to his feet. Jon and Alex were already waiting at the other end of the car with their bags slung over their shoulders. "Come on you two!" Jon called. "We gotta get out of here before someone notices the three sets of seats torn off the wall!"

Marcus vaguely remembered one of the empousai doing that damage and looking to his left at the damage he readily agreed with Jon. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he followed Samantha to the end of the train and they filed out. Alex hopped off the last few steps and stretched. "Since we have a few hours before the train leaves again for Las Vegas, can we go visit the Olympic Grounds?" She asked in an unusually happy tone.

She seemed particularly excited about this idea and Marcus turned to Jon with a raised eyebrow. Understanding the silent question, Jon shrugged. "She's a fan of the Olympics and follows them religiously. Don't ask me why because I don't know."

Marcus shrugged. "We don't exactly have the best timeline for this, but the train doesn't leave for another four hours. If It's close then why not."

They checked the maps in the station and to Alex's delight; it was a very short walk. The group made the short trek over to the grounds and along the way, Alex chattered endlessly about facts from the 2002 Winter Olympics that were held there. Marcus was surprised that she knew so much, this type of knowledge he would only expect from a child of Nike but it appears that not all demigods conformed to their godly parent's attributes. Then they turned a corner into the plaza and everyone stopped to crane their necks to take it what rose before them.

The Olympic Cauldron was beautiful. It reached five stories above him, with rectangular panels attached at all kinds of angles to make a crystal-like outer structure. In the silence of the park, he could hear and see the water cascading down the panels all the way to the ground. The torch at the top wasn't lit, but it didn't change how impressed Marcus was by the structure.

Everyone's staring was interrupted by a shocked sounding Jon. "Guys, angels aren't a thing right?"

Marcus wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then Jon pointed towards the base of the cauldron. Standing in the shadow of the structure was a woman that did resemble the general idea of an angel, with long dark hair piled up on her head in braids surrounded by laurels and a long white sleeveless dress. Her magnificent golden wings were folded behind her and her head was bowed.

They approached cautiously, and as they got near her head rose up. Her expression was intense, but beautiful. "Welcome, demigods." She said.

Her voice was commanding, almost strict like a drill sergeant. Marcus could feel his limbs twitching and tensing as he walked towards her despite his injuries, feeling new energy flowing through him and a sudden urge to do his best. As the other stopped a couple steps behind him, he realized she was silently calling him forward. He took one more step before kneeling. "Lady Nike?" He asked, worried that it may not be the goddess Nike but he figured by location it was a pretty good chance.

Her mouth spread in a smile. "Yes son of Hermes, now come closer. I have a proposition for you."

 **PLEASE READ THE A/N :D. It's long but please it's kinda important.**

 **A/N: I've screwed up big time (I've probably done so multiple times but please bear with me). I've realized that I don't remember at any point within this story actually describing what any of the characters look like besides clothing (to the one reviewer who asked about why I described clothing so much, clearly my priorities are out of line). Literally across the board I haven't described things like hair, build, features whatsoever, so my sincere apologies to everyone who's character is in the story but is not described in a satisfactory way and an even bigger apology to you dear readers who are most likely frustrated at the lack of image you are forming in your mind even though my goal is to create the clearest image of what is going on in your mind. So I goofed. Badly. To make it worse I can't just put a full description of characters in the story because we're 12 chapters in. In what story do you see details being described 12 chapters in?**

 **What I'll most likely do is at the bottom of the next chapter, I'll put a description of each character that is still in the story. Hopefully it'll clear things up a bit and to whoever submitted their character initially, they will most likely make an appearance, with a couple tweaks possibly happening, so don't lose hope!**

 **Again I'm really sorry guys, hopefully the long chapter will appease the frustration but I'm not sure when the next one is coming. I return to classes in May so hopefully one more chapter before then! See you all soon and please review if you have the time! Thanks for reading!**

 **-angelfirecho**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

 **A/N: Someone may be disappointed with me swapping back and forth between groups but I wanted to play it out this way so we don't go long stretches without seeing some characters. Enjoy!**

 **Grayson POV**

Grayson should have known that being too relieved and relaxed and safely on the way back to camp was a scenario too good to be true.

They were in the chariot, soaring through the sky as Ethan guided the pegasi back to camp. She personally was very much looking forward to getting inside the borders and getting a bit of rest to heal her very battered body before the attack hit. With how skinny she was, Grayson was surprised she had the skin real estate to bruise as much as she had on this quest.

Alyssa seemed to be in the same boat as her, rubbing her leg and looking rather unhappy with herself in the back of the chariot. At the front, Ethan Anderson was adjusting his fedora as he seemed to be having a conversation with the pegasi. Being a son of Poseidon, she wouldn't have been surprised if that is actually what he was doing. That left Martin overseeing Leah, who was still in her semi-conscious state on one side of the chariot. He glanced occasionally at the other two girls as he fiddled with a die.

Grayson still felt troubled about the rest of the original quest team. Having been part of the group, she knew conflicts were going to arise at some point. It was inevitable. There was far too much role conflict in the group. Marcus clearly felt pressured into being the leader, which he was as the quest was his, but he had to compete with the bright star that was Samantha. Honestly, she was surprised they hardly ever fought because it seemed Marcus lived out of her shadow and was now attempting to break out of it. Grayson determined she would never be able to figure out those two, there were simply too many variables and too many illogical things going on in between them and Grayson chose not to come to a conclusion based on incomplete information.

There had also been the problem of both her and Samantha being tacticians on the quest. Although she presumed that problem had been solved with her departure, strategic decision now fell on Samantha while final say should be up to Marcus. Then there were the Apollo siblings, who made up the more lighthearted side of the team. Alex had expressed a small level of interest in being an authoritative figure within the group, but Grayson concluded it was limited to keeping Jon in line. With a jolt, she realized that the prophecy predicted one of them would die on the quest and she felt light-headed for a moment. While it was still possible she could be the one to perish, she calculated that chance to be rather low because she was away from the final battle of the quest and on her way back to camp. Although there was also a battle where she was heading, she waved away the thought. The quest should be finished before the battle at camp happened.

Lost in thought, Grayson barely heard the initial screeching until Martin shook her shoulder, looking far more nervous that before. "Grayson we might have a problem."

Ethan had already snapped the reigns of the pegasi and they picked up speed as Grayson turned around and narrowed her eyes at the dark could in the distance behind them. She felt Alyssa stand beside her and the Asian girl confirmed her thoughts. "That's no cloud."

Martin looked to the front of the chariot. "Ethan can we go any faster? I don't like the looks of what is behind us."

Grayson wholeheartedly agreed, gripping the railing to keep herself steady. Glancing back again, she did a double take. The cloud had grown larger and it took her a moment to realize it was because it was closer, not growing in volume.

Soon, the dark cloud resolved itself into birds. Very large birds glinting in the sunlight. Grayson felt her blood run cold as she finally recognized what was coming and drew her daggers. "Stymphalian birds!" She shouted to the others.

Everyone's eyes widened. Even Ethan glanced back for a moment before speaking to the pegasi. "Speed boost won't be ready for a couple minutes!" He called back.

Martin drew his knife. "In a couple minutes I might have my flesh stripped from my bones! Hurry up!"

Grayson tried to form a quick plan, but the fact that they were airborne in a chariot with nothing available to them meant they were sitting ducks. She turned to Alyssa. "Can you pick off a few of them?"

Alyssa turned her head, an eyebrow raised. "At this range?"

Grayson nodded silently, causing a grin to appear on Alyssa's face. "You bet I can."

She drew her pistol and planted her feet, taking her time before she started pulling the trigger. Grayson had her fingers in her ears as gunshots rang out, Alyssa slowly and rhythmically taking down one demon bird after another. Each hit created a burst of gold dust that was immediately dispersed into the wind, but they kept coming completely unfazed.

Alyssa swapped out of one her magazines and inserted another one. Grayson knew the magazines refill with bullets over time, but it was slow and Alyssa would have to conserve some for if they ran into anything else on this trip. She had five of them the last time Grayson had counted, they were a gift from Hephaestus one year and she slid the empty mag into her pocket before pulling the slide back and resuming fire.

Martin stood on the other side of the chariot, clutching his dagger in one hand and the railing with the other. "Ethan!" He yelled, his voice rising in panic as the birds closed in. "We need to go!"

At the front, Ethan clenched his teeth. "I still need a moment Marty!" He yelled back. Grayson glanced at the birds and knew they weren't going to get that moment. She braced herself and yanked Alyssa by her jacket away from the back of the chariot as the birds descended upon them.

Close up, Grayson could see the sharp bronze beaks and beady, intelligent eyes of the birds as they dive-bombed the chariot. Alyssa screamed as one caught her in the side and she responded vengefully by blowing it to bits. Martin was trying to fend them off Leah with his knife while Grayson worked her way to the front of the chariot in an effort to defend Ethan.

Grayson's ADHD was working overtime at the moment. She was aware of Ethan wrestling with the reigns with one hand and trying to slash at any bird within range with the other. She was aware of Martin standing over Leah, yelling defiantly as he tried to parry the birds with a knife and using a broken section of the chariot as a semi-useful shield. She was aware of Alyssa's back occasionally making contact with hers as the gun-wielding girl carefully picked off stymphalian birds while ducking occasionally under Ethan's sword, using his deadly blade as a form of protection as she reset herself.

It wasn't going well. Soon they were all covered in slashes and cuts, with Alyssa's gun being the only effective weapon they had to take the birds down. The rest could only attempt to slash and parry and occasionally connect with a monster but every other time they were too quick for them. Soon the birds began to get smart, increasing their attacks on the pegasi and the chariot. Grayson was beginning to lose hope until Ethan yelled, "Hold on!" and she barely had enough time to grab the rail before he snapped the reigns. She could feel her stomach folding on itself as the air seemed to bend around them and suddenly they were over a forest.

Off to the right, Grayson could see the ocean. _Thank the gods we're close_ , she thought. But it wasn't close enough. Many of the kamikaze birds had somehow made the trip with them, which Grayson thought was completely irrational and unfair. The looks on the others' faces showed they agreed and were just as confused. Even Grayson lacked the full understanding of pegasi and their capabilities, so instead of spending time to determine the reason as to why the birds went with them based on incomplete information, she returned to slashing at the birds. Then one of the birds made contact with a wheel and broke it off completely. The chariot began to wobble in the air, with everyone grabbing onto the rails again to prevent themselves from being thrown off. Grayson felt her stomach lurch almost as much as the chariot as they began to lose altitude. _Can this get any worse?_ She complained to herself as yet another bird tore through the shoulder of her hoodie before she drove her knife into its back.

Of course it did.

Right as the thought went through her mind one of the birds dove straight in front of Ethan, and before he could react it ripped through the reigns, disconnecting the chariot from the pegasi. The pegasi, who had already been in a panic, took off immediately leaving them with no horses and 5 of them in a wooden box 100 feet in the air and dropping fast. Grayson ran a quick mental calculation through her head about the angle of approach and their velocity. It didn't look good.

 _Please no hard impact, please no please._ Was all Grayson could think as the chariot plummeted towards the ground. She wasn't sure if her body could take another hard impact into the forest, which was something she was really getting sick of. Luckily, they were descending towards a stream snaking its way through a field in between the lines of trees. She connected the dots quickly and turned to the front. "Ethan! Can you use the water to slow our fall?"

Ethan looked at her before looking over the edge, understanding what she meant instantly. He closed his eyes and suddenly the whole chariot shook as a geyser erupted from the river to push against the bottom of the chariot, slowing their fall considerably. "This is the best I can do!" He yelled, his eyes screwed shut in concentration.

Grayson's eyes widened as the far treeline began to approach them quickly. Their options were to stay in the chariot until impact, jump off onto land or jump into the water. Stay until impact was scratched immediately. Jumping into the water was a possibility with a Son of Poseidon with them, but then she noticed the bottom of the stream quickly rising until the water was gone and the geyser keeping them stable weakened and sputtered. _Well that reduced the choices quickly_. She made the call. "Everyone get ready! On my mark we jump, ok?"

No one argued and they all gathered together at the back. "Ready? Three…two-"

Grayson's voice cut off as the chariot suddenly gave way beneath them. She cursed, as she realized everyone gathering at the back of the chariot would throw it off balance and tip it. All of the demigods cursing could be heard as they tumbled out of the back of the chariot. Their saving grace was the chariot was only about 15 feet in the air. After flailing through the first several feet, Grayson managed to upright herself and braced as much as she could for impact. The landing jarred her whole body, making her feel like she was being crushed under a press as her legs buckled and she rolled across the grass, feeling rocks dig into her back and bit back a scream. She rolled to a stop and lay there, wishing she could just close her eyes and rest her aching body as a couple of spasms ran through it but she couldn't afford to do that.

She groaned and slowly pushed herself off of the ground, shaking her hair to get the dirt out. Looking across the field towards the trees, Grayson could see the splintered wreckage of the chariot. She vaguely remembered something about being told not to damage it. _Oops._

She gave herself a moment for her body to stop screaming in pain before she began a slow trudge across the field towards the wreckage. A few meters away, she potted Martin, who had made a new hole in a set of bushes. He had landed on his back underneath Leah, being the person to try and keep her from being injured further and Grayson appreciated him taking the hit for the team. If she had that job, there would barely be a difference between Leah hitting the ground and her cushioning Leah. She struggled to pull Leah up off of Martin, and then tried the best she could to help Martin up to his feet. Honestly, she didn't do much in terms of helping but he seemed to appreciate the effort. He then took Leah from her and carried her bridal style as they went looking for the remaining two members of their party.

They followed the sound of groans to find Ethan and Alyssa in a similar situation to how she had found Leah and Martin. Alyssa was unconscious, completely unaware of Ethan's arms wrapped around her. Ethan on the other hand, was just blinking his eyes open and had been the source of the groaning. Martin grinned mischievously as Ethan struggled to focus on the three standing over him, noticing Martin's grin before glancing down at the body he was holding. He immediately blushed, shooting a glance up at them before he gently rolled Alyssa's unconscious form off of him and nudged her awake. She came to rather quickly, scrunch her eyes before she fully awoke. "W-what the Hades just happened?"

Ethan looked at them with pleading eyes and Grayson decided now was not the time to mention the pose they had been found in. "Ethan cushioned your fall, looks like you both got knocked out on impact."

Alyssa glanced at Ethan, who was still a bit red but his expression gave nothing else away. She shrugged and smiled. "Thanks a lot Ethan."

She then turned away, not seeing Ethan's sigh of relief. "So what about the chariot?"

Grayson grimaced. "Not flying again it looks like. The pegasi are gone too, we're on our own." She took a step forward and held out a hand to help her best friend up. Alyssa gladly took it and pulled herself to her feet.

Ethan also pushed himself to his feet and dusted off. He looked around, seemingly searching for something for a bit before he finally gave up and his expression turned to one of sulking. Martin noticed and asked, "What's got you so down Ethan?"

Ethan mumbled something under his breath that no one caught. "Come again?" Martin said.

"I lost my fedora." Ethan grumbled a bit louder.

Alyssa's head whipped around, her mouth dropping open. "We're stuck in the middle of Gods knows where with no transportation, no plan and potential enemies everywhere and you're complaining about your _fedora?_ "

Grayson held out a hand to block her friend. "Not helping Alyssa, we have other things to attend to. Reallocate your energy to those tasks."

Alyssa relaxed for a moment before looking around. "Ok fine. So…does anyone know where we are now?"

Everyone glanced at each other and shrugged while Grayson tried to process all the facts she had collected during their hectic flight in. "I think we're somewhere in east Pennsylvania, maybe a hundred miles from camp." She estimated.

Alyssa groaned. "A _hundred miles_? How the Hades do we cover that much ground within the next couple day? The attack is coming!"

As Alyssa griped, Ethan's head suddenly shot up and he looked off to the side. "Does anyone hear that?"

Alyssa fell silent, Grayson straining her ears for a moment before she heard it, or more accurately, felt it. A low growling seemed to be in the air, combined with the shaking of ground that could only be from many, many things moving together. _Monsters_. She concluded.

Everyone else seemed to reach that conclusion as well, eyes widening as they looked at each other. Then Alyssa abruptly turned and darted into the trees in the direction of the noise. Grayson hesitated for a heartbeat before she ran after her. She heard a surprised shout from both boys before she too disappeared into the trees, keeping her eyes on the long ponytail of her friend as she jumped over logs and maneuvered through the trees. Up ahead, Alyssa abruptly stopped and Grayson skidded to a halt beside her. In front of them, the forest dropped away into a ravine about 80 meters below them. At the bottom of the ravine was a wide road, similar to a highway, but it wasn't being used by cars. Marching along the road was an army, ranging from dracaenae to telekhines to Laistrygonians to hyperborean giants. They marched with purpose while the noise of hisses and growls and shouting rose up to where the two girls stood.

There were hundreds of them, with the front of the army disappearing from view around a corner, Grayson wasn't able to fully estimate the strength of the force but it probably didn't matter too much to the others whether or not the force was 1000 in strength plus or minus another 200. Grayson could also see a number of boats in trailers being pulled by giants, their stark white hulls standing out like miniature soccer domes in the crowd of monsters. Their presence confirmed the speculation that the monsters would be attempting an aquatic assault on the vulnerable borders. Beside her, Alyssa audibly gulped and Grayson could not blame her as she took in what was in front of them. This is what was coming for camp?

Ethan and Martin soon appeared out of the trees behind them. "Hey! What was that-" Ethan began to shout before Alyssa turned and tackled him to the ground.

She held a forearm across his chest, pinning him down as both Grayson and Martin stared in shock. "Keep it down, ok?" She hissed quietly. "There's an entire army right below us!"

Ethan gulped and nodded. Alyssa then realized the position they had landed in and blushed before pulling back and allowing him to get up. They regrouped at the edge and peered down together. Fortunately, as far as Grayson could tell, none of the monsters had noticed Ethan's initial shout. She estimated the sound wave from his shout had been absorbed by the edge of the ravine and what made it past simply dispersed in the warm air. _If it were colder, the sound wave probably would've reached the monsters_. She mused and silently thanked the Gods for providing warm weather today.

The boys were both picking their jaws up off the ground as they registered what was in front of them. Ethan tried to look on the bright side. "At least we know that the army is slower than us. We should be able to beat them back to camp."

Grayson felt a cold fist squeeze her heart. They were in big trouble, but they had no way of sending an Iris message to warn camp. They were going to have to deliver the message themselves. The group withdrew from the edge of the ravine and moved a few meters into the forest, the growls of the monsters and clanking of weapons fading behind them.

Alyssa nudged Grayson and looked expectantly at her once they had retreated far enough to have a conversation. "Hey, this is where you come up with one of your top notch plans to get us back to camp and wipe out the army. What have you got?"

Grayson shook her head. "Very low on ideas for this situation, we need to avoid detection by the monsters as well as find a method of transportation and…"

Grayson trailed off as the forest around them seemed to change colours. Something that looked suspiciously like a path lit up between the trees and Grayson exchanged a nervous glance with Alyssa. "Should we follow this?" Martin asked, looking in their direction.

Grayson was a bit shocked when he realized he was asking her. She reeled internally for a moment, realizing she had just been placed at the head of this group as everyone looked at her expectantly and it was up to her to make decisions. _Focus now, they're counting on you_. She told herself and she quickly determined the possible scenarios. There was no better alternative so she nodded her head. "Follow it." She decided. "The monsters don't have the capability to create this so it might be friendly. Keep your eyes open though."

They followed the path as it weaved through the woods, taking them away from the road. Grayson calculated a 70% chance Alyssa would take a spill again with the heels on her boots, with a 30% chance the group would have to stop because of someone else tripping and falling with a 40% chance if one other group member fell it was her. She'd also estimated a 10% chance to encounter a monster, with the chance dropping as they moved further away from the army. They walked in silence, each focusing on maneuvering along the path and watching out for any signs of danger. Surprisingly, the falling calculations were deemed invalid as Alyssa didn't fall, not wanting to embarrass herself like Grayson had previously she thought, and nothing else happened like she had predicted.

Soon, the path opened up into a large clearing where the green of the grass and leaves of the trees seemed much more vibrant and alive than the rest of the forest. The group filed out of the trees, Ethan and Martin carrying Leah between them and Grayson let out a gasp of shock once the entire group had emerged into the clearing and she could get a clear look at the entire area. Standing in the middle of the clearing, in a dark green dress, was the brunette dryad that had saved Grayson from the Laistrygonian back in Dallas. Seeing Grayson, the girl pushed her braided hair over a shoulder and smiled. "It appears you do recognize me, it is wonderful to see you again Grayson."

Everyone's questioning eyes turned to Grayson, who's eyes widened even more and she found herself at a loss for words. "H-how do you know who I am? Who are you?"

Grayson was immensely confused. Dryads normally couldn't wander too far from the tree that was their life source, but this girl clearly defied that rule because she is standing in front of her halfway across the country from where they had first seen each other.

The girl paced a bit, her short brown boots making no noise as they treaded on the grass and she used her hands elegantly as she explained. "This may be a bit of an explanation, but please be patient and I will try to answer all your questions. My name is Willow. I am a Lady of the Wild, similar to the Council of Cloven Elders made of satyrs back at your camp. Here, I stand as a member of the Natural High Council, which oversees various aspects of nature in the wild and the spirits that live in it."

The whole group was shocked, but it was Ethan who spoke first. "My lady? You're saying that there exists another council of spirits that deals with nature?" Then he muttered to himself. "As if the Council of Cloven Elders wasn't difficult enough to deal with."

The other demigods who had dealt with the elders in the past snorted. It was far more difficult than it should be to discuss any kind of matter with the Cloven Elders. However, a slight smile on the dryad's lips did indicate she had heard him.

Willow rested her gaze on Ethan. "You will find that we are nothing like the satyrs. You are most likely very aware of how useless some of those old fools are and we do not conduct matters in a similar way."

Ethan turned red and stuttered as he tried to come up with something to defend himself but Willow put a finger to her lips to signal his silence. "I am only teasing son of Poseidon, you did not offend me. What you say is correct, there is more than one governing body within nature. But we do have much to discuss at the moment without the need to gather the full council. I can also get your injured friend some attention."

She flicked her wrist and a number of dryads melted out of the trees around them. Martin reflexively moved a hand to his waist but stopped as Grayson held up her hand. "It's fine." She told him.

Most of the dryads disappeared deeper into the forest, but two came forward towards the boys carrying Leah. The group once again looked to Grayson, who nodded, so Martin and Ethan allowed them to take Leah to the edge of the clearing. Willow indicated the ground in the middle of the clearing and sat cross-legged. "Please, join me."

The four remaining demigods sat around in a circle on the grass. Willow was silent for a bit, studying each of them before she began talking. Martin and Ethan both looked nervous while the girls were a bit more relaxed by the situation they now found themselves in.

Finally Willow spoke. "I've brought you were for a couple of reasons. The first is information. Nature sprits report to me what they learn, which in this case has included plans of the Titan army that approaches your camp."

That got everyone's attention. Suddenly alert and curious, Willow blinked for a moment as she noticed the change in attitude in the clearing before she continued. "They believe that Thalia's tree, I believe that is the name, is the key to the collapse of the non-ocean facing borders. They intend to distract using a force on one of the beaches and sneak in another force elsewhere, which would make its way to the tree. They think this will break open the borders and allow the main invasion force to enter the camp."

Gears were turning inside everyone's heads as they processed this information. Ethan spotted a hole first, which Grayson had to give him credit for. He seemed to be much smarter than what she gave him credit for. "But what about Peleus? The dragon guards the tree and the Golden Fleece, how would they get past him?"

The dryad shrugged. "I am not aware of all the details, Ethan. I simply know the outline and what they believe will work. Perhaps they have some method of drawing Peleus away from the tree. At any rate, they are high in number and march towards your camp."

Martin paled considerably. "Just our luck."

Willow allowed a small smile. "You should know all about luck, son of Tyche. It is not given freely and is often offset. Whatever it is, they have a plan and you must make sure it does not succeed, why even-"

She was interrupted by a petite girl sprinting to her side from the trees and whispering into her ear. Willow's face fell. "It appears there are monsters within the forest, most likely tracking your scent. Our time is at an end, you must leave now and warn your camp of what is coming."

They rose, but as Willow turned Alyssa interrupted. "Hey, what about the second thing you said you brought us here for, what was it?"

The dryad turned back to them and smiled. "Transportation. You may have heard of tree-travel where dryads pass objects, and occasionally people, over some distances through the tops of their trees?"

Martin's jaw dropped. "You're kidding right? You're going to have dryads pass us through trees back to camp?"

Ethan, on the other hand, broke into a wide grin. "Cool! I always wanted to tree surf!"

Willow shook her head. "That's not exactly how this works, but you'll find out for yourself in a few seconds."

Ethan's expression became confused. "A few-whoa!"

A pair of dryads had come up behind him and each taking a side, flung him up into the tree with strength that they should not possess. Soon all they could hear of Ethan was his whoop that faded into the distance.

Martin blinked. "Is there a way we can go without being thrown 20 feet in the air? And what about Leah?"

That question was answered by the dryads that had been caring for Leah carrying the unconscious girl over to the group, depositing the daughter of Hades into Martin's arms. "So, easy way to get up there?"

Willow simply shrugged and soon he was airborne as well, letting out a shout of displeasure and disappeared into the trees after Ethan. Alyssa and Grayson exchanged a glance, with Grayson giving an 'after you' indication. The other girl smiled and held her arms out to her side. "I'll see you back at camp Grayson."

Alyssa was then tossed up into the tree as well, leaving Grayson and Willow mostly alone. Grayson turned to leave but was stopped by Willow placing a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see her green-tinged eyes filled with concern. "You must understand the trials ahead will not be easy. Particularly for you. You are a strategist well versed in the art of battle, do what you must in order to succeed."

Willow let go with a nod and stepped back, raising her hand in farewell. "Good luck Grayson, We'll meet again soon."

She barely had time to return the farewell gesture before she was launched into the air and shot forward through the tops of the trees, the clearing soon far behind her.

 **A/N: This would've been one of my quickest updates to date but ran into a lot of timing problems and had surprising levels of difficulty getting the character descriptions down. This may be my last chapter for a while (reeeeeeally sorry :( ) but I go back to school and may not have the same amount of time to write as I did before. Hope you guys keep reading in the future and tolerate my absence, I'll update as soon as I can!**

 **Character descriptions:**

 **Samantha Tamaguchi** : About 5'5", slim with intense Japanese features and long straight black hair that falls below midback. Hair is often left loose, but when pulled back makes her seem almost regal an severe. Her independence and confidence results in a very intimidating stare and confident body posture.

 **Marcus Brooke** : About 5'7", relatively built with the slight elfish features of Hermes' kids. He has messy brown hair and blue eyes. His expression often seems like he is second guessing himself, but also open and friendly. His body language, while sometimes doubtful, presents a sense of stability.

 **Alejandra Vitale** : About 5'5" with narrow latina features. She has brown, chest length hair that is often in a braid and open blue eyes. She often wears a cocky, challenging expression and walks with confidence, although she is often found biting her nails when confused or nervous.

 **Jon Griffin** : about 5'8", Caucasian with golden-brown hair that is cut short along the sides but long in front to hang over his forehead. He has golden-hazel eyes and tanned skin with a rather lean build. His posture often presents a rather laid-back (or lazy) personality.

 **Grayson Wilson** : very skinny, about 5'5" with very pale skin and wide grey eyes. She has long dark hair full of split ends and features often furrowed in concentration. She is able to blend in to most scenarios and maintains a stoic expression in most situations, not expressing emotions very well.

 **Leah Grady** : average height, about 5'4", bronze-brown skin with dark eyes and intense features. Her dark curly hair falls below her shoulders and her skin a bit pale. Often with a cold expression on her face and an aggressive stance, her body language can change instantly to show a more relaxed, warmer side.

 **Martin James** : 5'7" with short, spiky brown hair and blue eyes. Caucasian with a long deep scar beneath his right eye, he often wears a kind expression but most find it difficult to determine what he is thinking because of his incredible poker face.

 **Alyssa Hu** : slim build about 5'3" in height with open, pretty Asian features and long dark hair with blonde highlights that is often in a high ponytail. Body language is often in a confident 'I will walk through it all' kind of attitude with lightly tanned skin.

 **Ethan Anderson** : about 5'7" with short, messy raven hair and tanned skin. Caucasian with sea green eyes and relaxed features that are often in a playful expression or with a goofy smile on his face. He is fairly built with broader than normal shoulders.

 **A/N 2: I could continue with clothes and that but I think a few people are sick of me describing clothes XD (Someone tell me if you actually want to see it or not in the next chapter or if you want more detailed descriptions…)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

 **A/N: Yeah…I know. Been over a year since any update to this story. I've been going through a really bad phase and honestly it broke my heart to not continue writing and providing for you guys. I'll be honest, I couldn't look at the story because I told myself as long as there's someone still reading it I would continue writing, and I saw reads and reviews and was torn that I had to keep a promise but was in no shape to do so. Big shout out to the last couple reviews for pushing me over the edge to get this chapter out, for now I'm not entirely out of the woods yet, but I'll be doing my best. Enjoy this chapter everyone.**

 **A/N UPDATE: I realize I didn't finish writing out a section of the chapter and my timeskip dividers didn't make it onto the site, sorry for the confusion everyone. Fixed now.**

Grayson POV

The dryads graciously dropped Grayson off on her friends at camp. Literally. Grayson popped out of the trees several feet in the air and had precious few seconds to realize she had been tossed out of the woods of camp before something soft and black halted her fall.

Groaning from the landing and slowly pushing herself into a sitting position, Grayson's dizziness began to lessen which made her aware of the cursing coming from beneath her. She barely had the energy to hold back a small smirk as she rolled off of Alyssa who had "volunteered" to be her landing cushion. Her friend coughed. "Please Grayson, this whole trip was full of hard landings, can we never do this again?"

Grayson had to agree. She was still dizzy and her body ached greatly. Glancing to her right, she saw Martin stumbling forward with Leah in his arms and noticed campers beginning to emerge from the cabins and run towards them. A conch horn blew and as her head began to spin much more violently, she heard a surprised exclamation from Alyssa and saw hands reaching for her as she pitched forwards and her world became black.

* * *

Grayson awoke in a soft white bed, which was the best place she had woken up in quite a while. The softness was like Elysium for her body, which felt like it had been stampeded by a herd of pegasi. Her mouth felt dryer than the Sahara desert and she doubted she could make much of a sound with it even if she tried.

Alyssa was sitting on the end of her bed, fiddling with the slide of her gun and oblivious to the fact that Grayson had woke up. Turning her head to the right, she saw the long dark locks of Leah in the bed beside her. Steven Tiliof from the Apollo cabin was hunched over her legs, removing a bandage with fresh dressings on a tray beside him. He must've seen her move her head in his peripheral vision because his head shot up as she turned. "Grayson!" He exclaimed. "You're awake! How do you feel?"

Grayson tried to make a sound but as predicted, her throat wasn't up for it. "oh, right. Alyssa can you give her that nectar?"

Alyssa had jumped to her feet when Steven spoke, standing over her with her warm brown eyes wide with concern. Wordlessly, she picked up the glass of nectar and put the straw between Grayson's lips. She blinked twice as a thank you as she drank, closing her eyes as the taste of her father's raspberry and chocolate chip cookies flowed through her mouth and down her throat until the glass only contained ice. "Thank you." She croaked out and Alyssa smiled in response.

"You know Wilson, injuring yourself to the point where you pass out unconscious for two days can be pretty bad for your health."

Grayson glared as Alyssa threw her own words back at her. "I'll take that into consideration." She said as her words emerging in a very scratchy voice.

She winced and settled back into the pillows behind her as her body wracked with pain. Alyssa's eyebrows shot up in alarm and she motioned for Steven to come over but Grayson held up a hand to stop them. "I'll be ok, probably just some leftovers from when I was out." She said wearily. "How are we looking for preparations?"

Now that she was more alert, she could see the bandages winding along Alyssa's arms and disappearing under the collar of her t-shirt along with the brace on her knee. "I guess the more important thing is how are you feeling?" She asked Alyssa with concern.

The Asian girl shrugged. "Doing better than you are by the looks of things. Just a sprain, heavy bruising and a few cuts and things that were dealt with easily. I'm already cleared to fight. Anyways you've missed a fair bit, being out for two days and all but you should probably change first. I brought some clothes over, Steven is she clear to move around?"

He looked up from Leah's bandages. "If she's feeling up to it and the nectar is kicking in thn yes. Just make sure you stop by later for me to take a look ok?"

Grayson nodded her thanks and Steven stood up and left the room, closing the door behind him. With Alyssa's help, she swung her legs off the bed and tried to stand up. Immediately, her head spun and she collapsed backwards only to be caught by her friend. "Oh gods, you sure about this?" She asked.

Grayson shook her head and gave a determined nod. "I'm no use lying in bed. Get me up."

Very carefully, Alyssa eased her back up and she was able to stand for a bit without collapsing. Swaying a moment, Grayson kept her eyes on the door and took a step forward, letting body motion clear up her head. Finally considering herself about 60% capable, she took the clothes from her friend and changed while she got a briefing. "So the Hephaestus cabin is churning as many weapons out of Bunker 9 as they can. We're setting up our defensive line halfway down the beach and three of our triremes are ready to go but your cabin is skeptical on their use."

Grayson tried to nod her head insider her shirt, then resorted to talking. "Maybe use them as a diversion, fully staffing them means we're spread too thin and we need that manpower elsewhere."

She got her shirt on properly in time to see Alyssa nodding in agreement. "Anyways, archers are set up all along the perimeter of the beach. Basically the plan is to hit them at range for as long as possible before confronting them in melee combat. Traps and barricades are being setup in the water to hamper progress of oncoming ships. A small detachment will be with Ladon up on the hill near Thalia's pine."

Grayson froze while zipping up her boots. Small detachment usually meant five or six campers. Considering the size of the beach they were defending, they would have no idea how large the force sent to destroy Thalia's pine would be until it was too late. Even with Ladon, a single burning stick could set the tree ablaze and destroy the tree. "It won't be enough." She stated.

Alyssa looked up from where she had been fiddling with her holster, surprise evident on her face. "What do you mean? Ladon is there too, they'll be fine right?"

Grayson was unconvinced. "The beach is too large, there could be other points where the enemy sneaks in a force large enough to overwhelm the detachment. It only takes one stick to set the tree on fire and that will result whatever force is waiting outside to get in. The camp will be overrun."

Alyssa looked thoughtful. "Fair enough. By the way, Chiron stopped by earlier. He's calling for a cabin counselor meeting tonight so we can review plans and allow those of us that just came back to provide input and information that we learned while away. You can bring that up tonight and anything else that I didn't see during that meeting with Willow."

Grayson groaned internally. She hadn't enjoyed the few counselor meetings she had sat in on, and in a time like this tension was going to be high. "By the way, did she say anything to you after we all got thrown up into the trees?" Alyssa asked.

Thinking back to what Willow had said made her head hurt. "Trials were ahead of me."

Alyssa rolled her eyes. "Trials, challenges, blah blah blah. Wow. You don't say. I don't need someone from the Natural High Council to tell me that!"

Grayson tried to shush her and it took a moment for Alyssa to remember Leah was also in the room sleeping. She snapped her mouth shut with an embarrassed look. "Come on, let's go outside if you can walk." She whispered.

Grayson slowly made her way outside and stood on the steps of the infirmary, where she immediately froze as she took in the scene around her. In her time at camp, Grayson had never seen it as it was now. Everyone was in full preparation for war. The Ares cabin was running drills in phalanx formation in the common area while numerous dryads and Apollo kids were re-stringing bows. Off in the distance down at the beach, Grayson could see campers scrambling over the triremes anchored at the shore and barriers being dragged into the water. "It looks beautiful." She murmured to herself, although she may have said it louder because Alyssa gave her a sideways glance.

Staring at the preparations, Grayson also realized she should probably IM the quest group since it had been two days since she had left them. Alyssa let her go, saying she'd catch her later after she finished some of her own preparations and took off towards the Hecate cabin. Grayson watched her friend's retreating back before taking a deep breath and turning towards the Poseidon cabin. Walking behind it, she stopped in front of the mist spray the cabin constantly generated to allow campers to send IMs and immediately thought of IMing Jon. That was her instinct, but common sense told her to message the quest leader. "O Iris, Goddess off the Rainbow, accept my offering."

As normal, the drachma she tossed disappeared. "Show me Marcus Brooke." She requested.

The mist shimmered until she got a very disorientating view of the back of Marcus's head. It took Grayson a realize that he was upside down, hence appearing from the top of the Iris message. "Marcus?" She asked hesitantly.

He jumped, or fell, she guessed since he was upside down before he spun around. Clearly he was hanging from some form of rope, his face was red from being upside down for a while as he looked in surprise. "Grayson? Thank the gods you made it back! I'd talk but uh, this really isn't the best time right now." He stuttered.

Grayson wanted to facepalm. He was clearly in the middle of doing something for the quest given how he kept nervously glancing out of view of the message. "Sorry." She apologized. "I just wanted to give a quick update. We're back, little worse for wear but we have a problem, the camp-"

Her words were drowned out by a scream of "CAZ!" coming from a few cabins over.

Grayson winced at the sound, but clearly it had an equal volume on the other side of her connection because Marcus's eyes widened considerably and he began scrambling as what sounded like a cross between a growl, roar and grunt came from the bottom of the image. "Sorry Grayson! We'll be in touch later assuming we li-"

It was his turn to be interrupted as the connection was cut off abruptly. As the mist faded away in the sunlight, Grayson let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. They were in another situation it seemed, but they'd figure it out. For their sake they had to, although the team had lost approximately 40% of their critical thinking capabilities with her departure. Then she scolded herself as she walked back towards her cabin. She was underestimating the capabilities of her friends. It was very possible they could get through anything themselves without her. She had to have more faith in them.

She let the thoughts go and transitioned her mind towards her present predicament. Somehow, she would have to convince a group of short-tempered, tense and ADHD demigods to listen to her and accept her proposed battle plan changes. She had maybe a 30% chance of succeeding, 20% depending if one of the counselors had something personal happen today. Speaking of which, she rounded the Poseidon cabin to find the source of the shout from earlier. Somehow, the triplets of Mackenzie, Mikayla and Matthew Caz had "accidentally" blown a hole in the side of the Apollo cabin and were busy being chewed out by a couple cabin residents. Jon and Alex wouldn't be too happy when they got back, Grayson mused.

She kept walking, her mind wandering over possibilities for the meeting tonight and calculating the percentage chances that different plan modifications would be accepted. The number of variables was too high, she concluded, for her to correctly calculate the chance of her success tonight. She was so lost in thought that she didn't realize she had made her way down to the dock until she stumbled on one of the planks, jolting her back into the real world. Looking across the dock, she noticed Ethan sitting on the edge with his feet in the water and cautiously walked over to sit cross-legged beside him.

There a couple minutes of silence before Ethan spoke. "Does it ever feel like…surreal at all?"

Grayson looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"

Ethan looked a bit deflated. "Many things, a big one is my lack of priorities. The camp is preparing for war and I'm sitting on a dock worrying about my feelings."

The frustration in his voice was clear, made evident by the whirlpool forming around his legs. Grayson hesitated before resting a hand on his shoulder. He immediately tensed up and flinched slightly. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked carefully.

She figured there was maybe a 10% chance of him telling her. They didn't know each other very well so it was highly unlikely he would open up. To her surprise, Ethan gave her a bewildered look before dissolving into laughter. Grayson simply stared as he tried to regain his composure. "S-sorry," He gasped as he tried to catch his breath. "It's just, did Grayson Wilson really just ask if I wanted to talk about my feelings?"

Grayson understood his thought process, but also felt slightly offended and her face must've shown it because Ethan abruptly stopped. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. "That was pretty bad of me, it's just that you used to be against emotions and only stood for logic. What changed your mind?"

She smirked at him, causing him to falter. "I started worrying about my feelings."

Ethan groaned and looked away. "Wow. Can't say I expected that. The problem for me is that I'm worrying about feelings for someone that you are rather close to…"

Grayson flashed possible candidates through her mind and after a moment thought back to his most recent retrieval mission. "Alyssa."

Ethan hung his head. "Should've known it would've only taken you a single guess. Yeah, it's Alyssa. I've fallen for her, but she makes no indication she has noticed anything or likes me back and I'm not sure what to do about this one."

Grayson realized he was in the exact same predicament as she was. "Have you talked to Martin about it?"

Ethan gave a hollow laugh. "He said to try my luck, typical for a son of Tyche. But maybe I will, after the battle. That way if she says yes, well we won't have some hard times directly ahead of us."

It appeared he had given the process a bit of thought, which made Grayson wonder how she was going to approach her problem again. Her thought train was interrupted by Ethan clapping a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks for coming down here, I know we don't talk much but I enjoyed working with you on the mission. See you around, Grayson."

The son of Poseidon stood up from the docks, his legs completely dry despite being submerged in the lake, and walked back up to the camp leaving Grayson alone in her thoughts on her feelings.

* * *

That night after dinner, head councilors and the demigods that had been on the retrieval mission along with Grayson met in the rec room. It had changed since the meeting Grayson had participated in before her quest. White boards of varying sizes were leaned against the walls haphazardly, battle plans covered the pingpong table and a giant map detailing the defense setup covered the wall beneath Seymour's head. Most of the counselors were already in the room when Grayson arrived. Johnathan Lycaos of the Aphrodite cabin was attempting to engage Sora Fujiwara in a conversation while Antonia Pines from Demeter was scolding Hecate's head Matthew Donovan over something he had said. The Hermes triplets occupied a corner of the ping-pong table with their heads together, no doubt plotting something while Ethan gave her a friendly wave. Grayson sat in the empty chair beside Alyssa just before Chiron entered with Martin and Steven behind him. Steven looked like he had come directly from the infirmary and stood by the door to not make a mess.

The meeting started out on a high note. "This is a waste of time." Matthew grumbled. "We need to be making preparations, setting up, building. Not going over what we already know."

Grayson could see out of the corner of her eye that Alyssa was opening her mouth to argue with her counselor and clamped a hand down on her leg to stop her. Her friend glared at her but this meeting was to get the input of the campers who had been away. Making arguments as the campers that this meeting was based around was not going to win them any points over those who had already made plans, especially since Grayson intended to suggest major changes to those plans. Fortunately, Chiron stepped in. "We're here to listen to those who have just returned from the retrieval mission, as they have learned a vital part of the enemy's plan." He said. "Grayson? Could you please share what you learned?"

Grayson swallowed nervously as all eyes turned towards her and nodded. She felt her stomach flip, but kept it together. "We learned that the primary objective of the beach invasion force is to destroy Thalia's pine tree. They believe that this will eliminate the barrier around camp and allow a second invasion force to enter the camp over the hill at the tree." She spoke with a bit of tremor to her words, a little disappointed the words were not very clear. She was also suddenly aware of how dry her mouth was.

A fresh bout of murmuring began among the assembled before Antonia raised her hand. "How much can we trust this information? What if it's a ploy to divert our forces and weaken our beach defense?" She asked. "It's not that I don't trust you two, it's that we can't confirm your source fully." She added hastily.

Grayson and Alyssa shared a glance before the daughter of Hecate spoke. "We wondered that as well, but this information was given to us by a member of the Natural High Council, who also saved Grayson's life during the mission. We believe it is safe."

Someone called from the other end of the room. "We don't even know what the Natural High Council is! Are they real?"

Uneasy glances were shared around the room and voices began to rise in doubt but Chiron quieted them down. "This information is indeed safe. The Natural High Council usually keeps to themselves, which is why most of you have never encountered them, but they are an equivalent to the Council of Cloven Elders. I have not heard from Willow in some time, but she can be trusted. We must act on this information."

The room erupted in shouting and kept going despite Chiron calling for quiet. The chaos continued for a couple minutes, with lots of banging and Grayson suspected at least one weapon had been drawn. She took a deep breath before standing up. "HEY!" She screamed. "SHUT UP!"

The effect was immediate, as everyone stopped talking and look at her. Some looked pretty scared or worried. Alyssa looked impressed as she heard a quiet whisper off to her right. "Holy crap, the world is ending. Grayson just yelled at us."

Grayson did her best to tune out everything and focus on the task at hand. "Look." She said. "The beach is huge, if something gets past our front line without us noticing, a group of five campers isn't going to stop a small army. Even with Ladon as backup. We need more people there. I'm not saying send 50% of our forces, but the current group must be increased in size."

To her surprise, she got a respectful nod from Sophia, her head counselor, as she sat down. Sophia then stood. "I say we rework our strategy. Grayson is correct, we need more support at Thalia's pine if a force is going straight for that tree. It would be unwise to ignore this."

Someone muttered in the back. "Gods forbid we make an unwise move."

Sophia turned towards the speaker but Jonathan spoke up to interrupt before things got too out of control. "Here's a question, how do you want to position the Poseidon kids? The fight is mostly in the water for the first stage but if the tree catches fire we need to have someone near it to put it out."

Ethan raised a hand. "I can be on the tree. Send Amanda and Lily to the beach, they have better control over the offensive aspect of our water powers.

Sergio Magellan from the Eros cabin traced a circle on the map around the area between the beach and Thalia's tree. "There's all kinds of paths in here from the water to the tree. I can cover some myself though not to worry."

Alyssa looked like she wanted to smack the smug grin off of his face but resorted to a cool tone of voice. "Thank you Sergio, how about we place you in the water instead? The monsters won't have to worry about any paths if they don't make it to the beach to begin with."

Sergio's mouth dropped open. "But my clothes would be ruined! And my hair! And-"

Sophia cut him off. "Sergio, shut it. Moving forward, we will rearrange our forces. Much of the space between the water and Thalia's pine is open ground. We will have a good amount of time to assess threats and it may be better to move Ladon into that area as his fire may light the tree. Agreed?"

There was silence, but a few nods were enough for Sophia. "I'll draft an alternate plan that will reposition our forces, including diversions and supporting groups. Anyone have any requests to be added to the change in plans? Speak now or forever hold your peace."

Alyssa looked around before raising her hand. "I was told earlier today that some triremes are ready to go, but Grayson pointed out that fully staffing them would spread us too thin. Is it possible we can load them with Greek fire and have my siblings project mist onto them to make them seem like they are staffed and explode them in the enemy's face?"

Antonia looked surprised. "Like kamikaze ships? I like the idea, although we won't have anyone on the ships right?"

Alyssa nodded. "It'll be a moonshot because we have no way to direct the ships, but confusion and explosions are a nice way to kick things off."

Sora also joined the conversation. "We might have a way to control them, get the Poseidon kids to direct the ships. Although we might be overtasking them and they won't be much use in the fight after from draining their powers."

Ethan shrugged. "I'll ask the girls later, see what they think about it. Should be fine though."

Sophia looked around for any sign of protest to this addition and found none. "As insane as it sounds, I like it. Permission to load triremes with Greek fire, Chiron?"

The centaur waved away the attention. "I am not your primary strategist, nor your leader. You demigods in this room are the ones responsible for the decision making, you don't need my permission for anything."

Attention swiveled back to Sophia, who nodded. "Caz siblings, Hephaestus, you're up for that. Anything else?"

The room was silent, but Grayson could now feel a buzz in the room. Everyone was feeling excited at the possibility of what was to come, although she detected an equal level of nervous anticipation. Liam from the Hephaestus cabin looked particularly excited, figures since he loved explosives. "No? We'll meet again tomorrow. Good luck with preparations everyone."

* * *

Grayson re-entered her cabin later that night, very aware of the stares directed at her from her half-siblings that hadn't gone to sleep yet. It appeared that word of her outburst at the meeting had spread quickly given the hushed whispers that quieted whenever she got too close to some of them. Sophia had immediately come back to the cabin to plan changes and was pouring over a map when Grayson entered. "Grayson, over here." She said without looking up.

Grayson hesitated before she walked over and saw her head counselor was looking at a map of the area between the beach and Thalia's pine. "I'm coordinating with Hephaestus on traps and routes, I want you to check this in the morning for final input."

Grayson just stared. Sophia had never asked her for final input before. That was always delegated to one of the older Athena children. She seemed to detect her confusion and straightened. "I can tell you changed after the quest." Sophia told her. "I also know you didn't volunteer to escort Leah back out of cowardice, the steel behind you is showing itself now Grayson. Before your decisions were a bit haphazard, you could always do it but you would miss key things. I think the quest changed you for the better. I believe in you to confirm everything, understood?"

Grayson was stunned by this evaluation and could only give a small nod of her head. "Good." Sophia smiled. "Now get some rest."

Grayson nodded again, knowing she needed rest to recover from her injuries still. Changing and crawling into her bed, she thought she might fall asleep quickly but her mind was in overdrive. Did she really mature as much as Sophia thought? Did the quest change her that much? She didn't have enough evidence to reach these conclusions, but her side was also biased. Sophia clearly did though. As lights began to click out around the cabin, Grayson closed her eyes and did her best to calm the raging storm behind her eyes.

It didn't work. Hours later, well after everyone had fallen asleep, Grayson was still awake. Frustrated with her insomnia, she slid out of bed, put her boots on and quietly exited the cabin into the darkness.

 **A/N: I'm not entirely sure when the next update will be coming, I promise as soon as I can. I also realize this has been a couple chapters focusing specifically on Grayson and the story will move away from her for a bit, but not going to lie she was really fun to write the POV from. Might have a few more of those in the future, but the next chapter will be the primary quest group. Until next time!**

-angelfirecho


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